Okay, so I had this wild idea to try and understand how these crazy “dim sum basket” buildings are made. You know, the ones that look like they’re straight out of a cartoon? I kept seeing pictures of this one building called “The Hive” in Singapore, and I just had to figure it out.
First off, I started digging around online, just Googling stuff like “dim sum basket building” and “The Hive Singapore.” I found out that this Hive place is part of Nanyang Technological University and it cost like, 45 million dollars to build! Can you believe that? And it’s got eight floors, all stacked up like a bunch of dim sum baskets.
I learned that the guy who designed it is some famous British dude named Thomas Heatherwick. Apparently, it was his first big project in Asia. The building is made up of 12 towers, all curved and arranged around this big open space in the middle.
So, I started looking at pictures, trying to break down how they actually built this thing. It’s not just for looks, you know? The way the floors get bigger as they go up is actually on purpose. It’s like, the opposite of how buildings are usually made.
The next step was figuring out the materials. I read somewhere that the outside walls have this cool, bumpy texture. Turns out, they made it by pouring concrete into these special molds made of silicone. And get this – they only needed ten different molds to make the whole building’s walls because they could adjust them!
And then I tried to find out about all the layers needed, but it was way too complicated, so I gave up.
Here is what I learned:
- It’s Expensive: Building something like this takes a lot of money. We’re talking millions!
- It’s Unique: The design is super different from regular buildings. It’s more like a giant sculpture.
- It’s Tricky: Figuring out the structure and all the layers is tough.
- It’s Smart: They used some clever tricks with the materials, like those silicone molds.
The Takeaway
I still don’t know all the details, but I have a way better idea of how these dim sum basket buildings are put together. It’s a mix of crazy design, smart engineering, and probably a whole lot of headaches. But hey, it’s pretty cool to see what people can come up with when they think outside the box, or in this case, outside the usual building shape.