An entire Japanese airport terminal sits on hydraulic jacks
Architecture
To prevent a $20 billion gateway from sinking into the sea, engineers must manually level the massive terminal building using nearly a thousand industrial pistons.
Kansai International Airport was built on a massive artificial island made of crushed mountains, but the weight of the 1.7-kilometer terminal is slowly crushing the seabed beneath it. The island sits on a thick layer of soft clay that compacts like a sponge, causing the entire structure to sink by about 13 centimeters every year. To keep the floors perfectly level, engineers resting the building on 900 hydraulic jacks that can be adjusted individually.