China temporarily moved an entire neighborhood, including buildings. But how?

With the use of 3D digitization, autonomous drilling robots and robotic hindraulic monkeys, it was possible to displace the entire edifies complex.

A 100 -year -old Shikumen buildings complex in Shanghai, with a weight of 8270 tons and over 4000 square meters of area, was temporarily dislocated using a Robotic Hydraulic Monkey Fleetto give way to a large underground project.

The building, part of the Huayanli complex built in the 1920s and 1930s, is a historical example of fusion between western and Chinese architecture and was considered too valuable to be demolished. Instead, the Shanghai Construction No. 2 group resorted to an innovative solution: moving the entire structure to allow the construction of an underground shopping center, parking and access to the subway, with a total area of ​​53 000 square meters, explains the.

To realize the operation, engineers used cutting -edge technologies: 3D digitization to map the structure, autonomous drilling robots to prepare foundation, artificial intelligence systems to distinguish between different soil types and kilometers of rolling rugs to remove land and debris. But the highlight was the 432 modular and omnidirectional hydraulic monkeys, nicknamed “Andantes robots”.

These devices, with capacity to Raise up to 10 tons eachthey functioned coordinated through a central AI control system, shifting the building at a pace of about 10 meters a day. Between May 19th and June 7th, the robots were able to reposition the structure in their original foundation after a first movement held in late 2023.

This was not the first time that large buildings were moved instead of demolished. In 1985, Hotel Fairintunt, Texas (USA), was moved by six blocks Using rollers, trucks and pulleys systems, establishing a world record. Even more impressive, in 1930, the headquarters of Indiana Bell was a 90 degree round while still operating normally, without any interruption of services or utilities.

Unlike these mechanical operations of the twentieth century, change in Shanghai shows how robotics, AI and engineering can collaborate to preserve cultural heritage without locking urban development.