The Japanese have come up with new innovative way to demolish a sky scraper. The Kajima Corporation says that its method of deconstructing a tower block - rather than imploding the structure with the careful placement of explosives - saves time and space, has less impact on the environment and makes the recycling of materials easier.

The new process has been labeled “Daruma-Otoshi ”, after a popular Japanese game in which players take turns to hammer out the bottom bricks of a column without disturbing the rest of the tower.

How exactly is this knowledge applied to tearing down a sky scraper? Well, first the support pillars are replaced with computer controlled metal columns. The ground floor is then dismantled, taken to pieces bit-by-bit. The computer controlled structures then move down, lower the next floor to the ground. The mechanical supports are replaced once again and the next floor is steadily stripped from the building.

 

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The ground-up method is clearly a greener approach to ridding cities of its old dilapidated buildings, Kajima says that it also speeds up the project by 20% compared to using explosives.

Daruma Otoshi - Japanese Toy

????? (daruma otoshi) is an ancient Japanese game, consisting a Daruma doll in pieces, usually in the colors of the rainbow, with five pieces in total. (From Top to Bottom)

• Head (Man’s face)
• Blue
• Green
• Yellow
• Red

Darumaotoshi or “falling daruma” is a game of skill where you stack the wooden pieces with the meditating daruma head on top using the wooden mallet pushed through the holes in the circular pieces.

Next pull out the mallet and try to hit one of the pieces with the wooden mallet so that the pieces drop but stay stacked in a column.

If the pieces drop on top of each other and don’t collapse you win!