No matter how much your clients wish they could, construction projects take a considerable amount of time to complete. After working on a project for months, even years, sometimes it’s hard to look back and realize the magnitude of the work that’s been done. That’s one of the beauties of timelapse videos. Where a single picture tells the story of a particular moment, a timelapse video condenses thousands and thousands of man hours down to a few minutes or seconds. Not only does it help you appreciate the hard work that you and your co-workers put forward, but it can also be a great marketing tool for your company.
Throughout 2016, we’ve shared many newsworthy construction related timelapse videos and, with the new year upon us, it’s time to reflect on our favorite videos. Don’t forget to tell us which one was your favorite in the comments section below!
13. Construction Process of an Olympic Swimming Pool
Since 2016 was a Summer Olympics year, it would be hard to not include something related to the games on our countdown. In order for American swimmers to be chosen to represent Team USA in the Olympics, they must first qualify at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials, which were held in Omaha, Nebraska last year. The Olympic pools that are used for the trials, however, are not permanent, and builders only had 16 days to complete the construction. The video below shows the process of building the Olympic trials pool within that 16 day timeframe.
12. Tower Crane Erection in Downtown Chicago
We’re not only interested in timelapse videos that span months and years here at Construction Junkie. Sometimes a timelapse video that covers several hours can be equally cool. This particular video shows a tower crane erection which will help Clark Construction build a new 33-story, 265-unit residential tower inside the Loop, which is the central business district in Chicago.
11. Up Close Wind Turbine Timelapse
The 330KW wind turbine in North Ayrshire, Scotland stands 200 feet high (61m) and is one of Locogen’s Enercon E33 turbines. In the video, you’ll see the entire construction process, from beginning to end and it’s filmed up close, so you can see pretty much every detail.
10. Atlanta Falcons Stadium
If your city wants to build a new NFL football stadium, they better be prepared to shell out some serious cash. Stadiums continue to be built larger and more luxurious than their past predecessors and the past 4 NFL stadiums that have opened up have cost more than $1 BILLION. The Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which will be home to the Atlanta Falcons starting in 2017, features a pinwheel retractable roof, which can open within 8 minutes and looks like a camera lens. The recent timelapse video released shows the process up until the final roof beam placement
9. Japan Sinkhole Repair
In November, a giant sinkhole formed below a city street in Fukuoka, Japan, while crews were working on a new subway tunnel directly below. Just under a week later, the massive 98 feet long by 88 feet wide by 50 feet deep hole was completely repaired and the road was reopened. There was some expected settling that occurred a few days later which again caused the road to be closed temporarily, but the feat was still impressive and the repair efforts were captured on camera.
8. 230 Foot Tunnel Installed Under Highway in 3 Days
Any construction process that vastly reduces the impact to traffic and surrounding businesses gets us pretty excited. By reducing the public problems that construction can create, especially in infrastructure, job sites can operate much more efficiently and safely. In the video below, you’ll see a 230 feet long tunnel (70m) be installed under a highway overpass in just 3 days. The existing overpass had to be demolished and re-built in that same time period, as well. That’s not something that can be accomplished with a traditional cast-in-place method. With the tunnel already built, it merely had to be pushed into place. The tunnel spanned under the A12 highway in the Netherlands, which heads towards Arnhem. Dutch construction company Hejimans performed the job through an impressive thunderstorm, as well, which is shown towards the end of the video.
7. Demolition of Entire NYC Block
Most of the time in construction, you can’t go forward without going backwards first. Such is the case at the site of the future One Vanderbilt Tower in New York City, which required the demolition of 5 different buildings within an entire street block. The new tower is expected to reach 1,501 feet (458m) tall and contain 1,750,000 square feet (162,600 square meters) of space. When complete, the One Vanderbilt Tower will be one of the 50 tallest buildings in the world. Below is the demolition video of the entire block:
6. The National Museum of African American History & Culture
Decades in the making, The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC) officially opened its doors to the public on September 24, 2016. Contained inside are over 36,000 artifacts that document and promote the accomplishments of African Americans throughout history and is “the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, history, and culture,” according to the museum’s website. Designed by the team of Freelon Adjaye Bond/Smithgroup, the 322,600 square feet building was built by a combination of Clark Construction Group, Smoot Construction and H.J. Russell and Company. After roughly 4 years of construction, the building is finally complete and open to the public, standing tall in the heart of the National Mall in Washington D.C.
5. Hundreds of Construction Vehicles Pave a Russian Street
It’s not often that a gigantic pack of construction vehicles are seen on the same site together, been when they do, it’s pretty memorizing. Very few jobsites have the luxury of throwing a bunch of machines and labor on a project, but, if performed correctly, it can get a job done pretty quickly. In the video below, you’ll see a timelapse video of over 300 different construction vehicles tackle an asphalt overlayment in Russia. According to the video description, over 8800 tons (8000 metric tons) of asphalt was laid across 344,000 square feet (32,000m²).
4. 116 Excavators Work Side by Side to Demolish a 1,640 foot long Overpass Overnight
In late August, starting around 10:30pm local time, crews began an overnight demolition of a 1,640 foot long two-lane overpass in Nanchang, China to make way for a new subway system. This crew didn’t use some boring old dynamite to bring this overpass done, they used sheer brute force by way of a massive amount of excavators (116, to be exact) chipping away at the structure all night. It only took the crews about 56 total hours to complete the demolition and clean up the mess, which is probably a task that only 116 heavy pieces of construction equipment can accomplish
3. The Panama Canal Expansion
The Panama Canal has been undergoing a 5.5 billion dollar expansion project since March of 2011 and has finally officially opened, as of Sunday, June 26, 2016. The mega project included a new, third set of locks, which lift passing ships up and down the differing elevations of the Canal; a new Pacific access channel, which required the excavation of roughly 65 million cubic yards (50 million cubic meters); a navigation channel improvement; and improvements to the water supply. From the beginning to the end of the project, EarthCam shot 4k video footage and has recently released a timelapse video of the entire process, with over 142 different webcam angles.
2. 1870’s Hospital Demolition Video in Reverse
The Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital first opened its doors in 1876 as a 675,000 square foot facility in Morris Plains, New Jersey. At its peak, it served 7,764 patients at one time. The hospital had been completely unoccupied since 2008, when it was ordered to be closed due to poor conditions and overcrowding. The hospital had been marred in the past by extremely overcrowded conditions, reports of sexual abuse of patients by employees, violence, and patient suicides. Demolition began on the deteriorated building in May of 2015 and finished in November of 2015.
The demolition of the historic building was not without its critics, however. A preservation group, called Preserve Greystone, fought for years to stop the demolition of the building and hoped that it could be converted to housing and office space. After receiving several proposals, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and his staff determined that none of the proposals were money makers and approved the demolition.
Drone footage of the 7 month long demolition was captured by Jody Johnson, known on Youtube as GlideBy JJ. After the demolition was completed, she had a vision to play the footage in reverse, which was edited by Lisa Marie Blohm. The film has also been selected to be shown at the NYC Drone Film Festival in March of 2016.
1. Shanghai Tower Construction
Standing 2,073 feet high (632 meters), the Shanghai tower is the world’s second tallest building behind the ultra-famous Burj Khalifa. The 128 story building took 7 years to complete and was finished in September of 2015. Filmmaker Joe Nafis had the foresight to begin filming the construction of the tower in 2011, when he found an unobstructed view of the city of Lujiazui, which is a peninsula in the city of Shanghai. Over the next 4 years, Nafis took hundreds of thousands of photos of the tower, totaling about 8 terabytes of memory.
Not only is the subject of the timelapse special, being that it’s the 2nd tallest building in the world, but it’s also the artistic flair and different camera angles that truly sets the video apart from the others and made it our top choice for Best timelapse videos of 2016.
The earth can be a sort of an unmarked time capsule in many areas. It holds secrets of the past, some of which were hoped to never be found, but others that people dream of finding. Almost every project requires excavation or demolition in some way, so keep your eyes peeled for the next great discovery!