What you are going to see in this post, is one of those rare things in life that leaves you truly speechless, and one more reason to say that technology in these days has no limits. When it comes to tearing down buildings, I’m pretty sure that you think at an implosion ( BTW – here is a cool one ), but today you’ll see a new demolition method that starts on the bottom floor. The process is called daruma-otoshi after a Japanese game that makes players take the bottom parts of a column using a hammer without disturbing the rest of the parts above.

Japanese construction firm Kajima Corporation is using this innovative new skyscraper demolition method to dismantle a pair of old company buildings in Tokyo. Compared to blowing it up, this method saves time and space, pollutes the air less, makes material recycling easier, I think that in big cities this method would be very useful and it’s obviously a lot less dusty than a traditional demo.

How do they do it ?

First they replace the support pillars at ground level with computer-controlled metal columns. Then, a crew carefully demolishes the entire floor by hand, leaving the structure resting on the mechanical pillars, which then go down slowly until the next floor is at ground level. They replace the support pillars again with the mechanical ones, destroy that floor, and repeat the operation until they get rid of all the floors.

This makes it look as if the building is shrinking in front of you, or being swallowed by the street. According to the company, this method greatly reduces the environmental impact of the demolition, as well as the time. Kajima says that it speeds up the task by 20%, while making it easier to separate materials for recycling, as well as reducing the amount of products released into the air. – Via