It's the world's longest sea-crossing bridge: 55 kilometres of motorway spans the Pearl River Estuary in the South China Sea before dipping into an undersea tunnel. The Chinese President Xi Jinping has today officially opened the gigantic infrastructure linking Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China. A colossal engineering structure, involving the Bouygues Construction subsidiaries Bouygues Travaux Publics, Dragages Hong Kong and VSL for the construction of a 9.4-kilometre section.
A bridge of strategic importance 5714 prefabricated segments of 250 different types, laid down at the rate of 18 per day, shaft grouted friction piling method to cope with difficult ground conditions – a technical first in Hong Kong –, sea-based installations and specific logistical arrangements to maintain the waterways throughout the duration of the works... Some notable innovations for the construction of this extraordinary bridge structure. It is now possible to reach Hong Kong from the main cities of the Pearl River delta in 30 minutes, compared with four hours by land and one hour by boat. A real basis for stimulating commercial ties between the two sides of the crossing.
Central Lille welcomes the 5th edition of the ACE Workshop which brings together world experts in construction of the future. The Construction Chair 4.0, created by Bouygues Construction and Centrale Lille in 2017, will benefit from this event. Interview with Prof. Lafhaj, holder of the chair.
Alexandre Bouvry, CATALPA Project Director at Bouygues Entreprises France-Europe, tells us about a sustainable wood-frame modular project that's being built for the French Defence Infrastructure Service.
La Vie avec (Living with...) is a user-adjustable system for monitoring the adaptation of French habits and lifestyles, combining monthly quantitative surveys of a panel of 1,000 people and the management of an online community of 50 citizen-consumers. The quantitative data presented in this article is taken from an online survey conducted by ObSoCo (Observatoire Société & Consommation) on the Respondi panel from 19 to 26 January 2021 on behalf of Bouygues Construction in three survey areas: the ideal living environment, housing as a work environment and involvement in local and community initiatives.
Purchase housing without paying for the land it stands on. Savings of between 20 and 50% are now possible thanks to the French “bail réel solidaire” leasehold arrangement provided for by the ALUR law and specified late last year by the ELAN law
Given the backdrop of depleting resources such as sand and the saturation of landfills in Île-de-France, and due to the volumes excavated for this work, the idea of reusing the land excavated for new construction was very appealing.
Around 28% of the world’s animal and plant species are now under threat of extinction . This includes one in four mammal species, one in seven birds and more than one in three amphibians, as well as a third of conifer species. Scientists are warning of an ongoing collapse of biodiversity, with some even talking about a “sixth mass extinction”. The principal causes are the destruction and fragmentation of the habitats of these species, the overexploitation of ecosystems, the development of invasive species, climate change and pollution and eutrophication (the introduction of nitrogen, phosphorus and other excess nutrients into the environment). Many of these factors are caused by human activities, which have such a strong and rapid influence that the biosphere is unable to adapt to them. What action can we take to halt the trend and prevent ourselves from crossing critical thresholds? Pierre Lopez, Sustainable Construction Project Manager at Bouygues Bâtiment Nord-Est, gives us his point of view on the construction sector.
The Liantang tunnelling project entered a new chapter on 1st March with the breakthrough of the southbound tube’s Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) section by Hong Kong’s largest dual-mode Earth Pressure Balanced (EPB) TBM. A milestone in this major project for Chinese regional planning.
Ramy Saad, energy efficiency and sustainable design engineer at Bouygues Bâtiment International, shares details of European research project “EnergyMatching”, part of the large-scale “Horizon 2020” programme on making energy efficiency improvements to buildings.
To meet the needs of both patients and healthcare workers, each healthcare site must combine reliability with ease of use. This fact is not always taken into account. This is evidenced by the numerous problems pointed out by users relating to space and practical issues. However, whether in care homes or hospitals, the building can be a valuable asset in taking care of the most vulnerable and allowing health professionals to work in the best possible conditions. This is a major challenge that Bouygues Construction wants to address using digitisation.
