engineering

Name: Oasis of the Seas
Where: Florida
Cost: $1.2 billion
Estimated Completion: This year
The Challenge: Build an 18-story-tall superliner with more outdoor space

When the Oasis of the Seas sets sail later this year, it will claim the record for biggest passenger ship, with space for 6,300 passengers, 2,000 more than any other ship. But it will also claim the most rooms with balconies, the biggest onboard swimming pool, and the first at-sea, tree-filled, outdoor park.

Name: Burj Mubarak al Kabir
Where: Kuwait
Cost: $7.37 billion
Estimated Completion: 2016
The Challenge: Erect a 3,300-foot building that’s strong enough to withstand 150mph winds

Name: Burj Mubarak al Kabir
Where: Kuwait
Cost: $7.37 billion
Estimated Completion: 2016
The Challenge: Erect a 3,300-foot building that’s strong enough to withstand 150mph winds

Name: Perdido Spar
Where: Gulf of Mexico
Cost: Undisclosed
Estimated Completion: First oil, 2010; all wells online, 2016
The Challenge: Moor a skyscraper-size floating rig to the seafloor, then drill the world's deepest subsea well

Two hundred miles off the coast of Galveston, Texas, below 10,000 feet of water and another 9,000 feet of mud, salt and rock, lies Shell Oil's most ambitious new target, a swath of seabed the size of Houston that holds enough oil and natural gas to produce up to 130,000 barrels a day.

Name: Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Crossing
Where: Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Cost: $817 million
Estimated Completion: 2012
The Challenge: Construct the world's tallest arch bridge on a bed of sand

Name: Alternative Multifunctional Underground Space
Where: Amsterdam
Cost: $14.4 billion
Estimated Completion: 2028
The Challenge: Hollow out 900 million cubic feet of earth to make a watertight underground urban oasis

Name: Gotthard Base Tunnel
Where: Swiss Alps
Cost: $8 billion
Estimated Completion: 2017
The challenge: Dig the longest tunnel ever, perfectly level, through the base of the Alps

Tension and integrity are more than just what you might encounter in a day at the office. According to physics-centric artist Kenneth Snelson, the characteristics combine to form tensegrity, a principle based on strength and adaptability. Snelson uses it in reference to materials, but that mix can also come in handy in the workplace, especially in today's economy.

You're not the only one adjusting to leaner times in this sharp downturn: buildings are also feeling the weight of the cash crunch. But, thanks to an inventive crop of architects and engineers, there may be a silver lining, in the form of human-powered entertainment venues, environmentally sensitive walls, and unusual takes on traditional construction materials.

In congested cities like Tokyo, there’s barely room to swing a wrecking ball, and neighbors hate the caustic dust that implosions kick up. So the Japanese construction company Kajima developed a tidier technique, which it first used this past spring to take down a 17-story and a 20-story office tower: Knock out the ground floor, lower the building on computer-controlled hydraulic jacks, and repeat.

Construction on the $10-billion behemoth—housed 300 feet underground in a 17-mile circular tube—spanned 14 years and required the efforts of 10,000 engineers and physicists. But its real engineering feat comes from the 1,200 magnets—each 35 tons in weight, 50 feet long, and powerful enough to crush a bus between them—that steer a stream of protons traveling at nearly the speed of light. These magnets are powered by 4,700 miles’ worth of superconducting niobium-titanium cable, and work only when cooled to 3.4˚F above absolute zero, colder than deep space.

As a child growing up in northern China, Yan Xiao loved flying kites. A born engineer, he made them himself out of paper sails and plain bamboo frames. The kites were durable and cheap. Xiao left China at age 22 to study civil engineering in Japan and the U.S. but returned as a visiting professor at Hunan University in 2002. On a trip to the region’s vast bamboo forests, the memory of those kites gave the 47-year-old Xiao a flash of inspiration: Bamboo was strong enough for kites, but he suspected that it could be fortified to make even sturdier things, like bridges and houses.

Just a few weeks ago, the new St. Anthony bridge in Minneapolis opened, to a heavy stream of commuter traffic. On August 1, 2007, the original bridge collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring more than 100. The National Transportation Safety Board will issue an official report on the bridge collapse next month, but the likely cause has to do with gusset plates that were poorly designed in the 1960s. There are still 12,600 similar "steel deck truss" bridges in use in the U.S.

On May 4, 2007, a two-mile-wide F5 tornado destroyed 95 percent of Greensburg, Kansas, leaving two thirds of the town’s 1,500 inhabitants homeless. Many thought the town was finished. But in fact, the townspeople decided to rebuild using the greenest, most forward-thinking materials and construction methods possible.

The Lions Gate Bridge carries some 70,000 cars almost a mile across the entrance to Vancouver’s harbor every day. In a city polishing itself up for the 2010 Winter Olympics, the bridge is prime postcard fodder.