10. International Space station.
This is the largest masterpiece of the human engineering in orbit around Earth at present. The station consists mainly of habitable and science modules, external trusses and solar panels to provide power. The International Space Station leads its origin from merging of two former space stations – the Russian Mir-2 and the American Freedom. ISS is expanding continuously by adding new modules and it is sometimes visible even with naked eye.
9. Three Gorges Dam.
It is a giant wall that cuts the Yangtze River near the town of Sandouping, Hubei province, China. At the moment it is the world’s largest power station producing roughly 22 500 MW per year. The other function of the facility is to prevent flooding in the following parts of the river. However, the dam caused flooding of important archeological places and the displacement of 1.3 million people.
8. Boston’s Big Dig.
Officially it is Central Artery/Tunnel Project, but people know it mostly as the Big Dig. The project had several goals, mainly to reroute and build few main road arteries and tunnels. Work was done between 1991 and 2006.
7. The World Islands.
This is an archipelago of artificial islands arranged to form a copy of the world map. It is located 4 km away from the coast of Dubai, UAE. Each island has an area between 14 000 and 42 000 square meters. The whole archipelago required 321 million cubic meters of sand and 386 million tons of rock for its construction.
6. Dubai Canal.
It was expected to be completed in 2012 but it is still on hold because of financial difficulties. The canal would cost $11 milliard and another $50 milliard was dedicated to building new “city” around the canal. Plans show that the Dubai Canal would be suitable for yachts and small ships with its width of 150 meters and depth of 6.
5. Panama Canal.
This is a cut through the neck that connects North and South America. It strongly reduces the travel time of cargo ships, eliminating the necessity of traveling around the whole South America. Digging was started for first by France in 1884 but strong epidemic and engineering issues forced them to stop. USA started again in 1904 and needed ten years for completion.
4. Marmaray.
The railway tunnel that connects European to the Asian coast has already an open section. This section with four stations was officially opened on October 29, 2013 for the celebration of 90th anniversary of the Republic of Turkey.
3. New York Subway.
This is the fourth largest subway system in the world with length of 700 miles (1126.5 km). It is also one of the busiest, serving passengers 24 hours a day with 6500 cars.
2. Havvada Island.
This is an artificial island that is proposed to be created near the Turkish coast. But it’s not just, this is a concept of how a future city could look like. The island will be a home for 300 000 inhabitants and will consist of 6 geodesic domes.
1. Future cities concepts.
Although not a single engineering project, many scientist work on ideas of how the future cities will look like. Havvada Island is one of them, another idea is the sky cities which consist of many higher towers to provide more residential space. Another popular idea is the self-sustaining city gathered into one huge building.
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