Wednesday, June 24, 2009

How Its Made : Tokyo Underground Bike Parking

Readers will remember that I blogged last year about the brilliant underground bike parking system made by the Japanese at Nishi-Kasai Station in Edogawa, Tokyo. I just happened to discover a cool video from Japanese news broadcaster Newsline which details how one of these these automated parking systems, called Eco Cycle, was designed & constructed and the machines which were employed in the process. This really looks to have been a neat little civil engineering project for the developers - Giken Seisakusho Group.


A picture of Giken's 'Silent Piling Machine' which takes prefabricated structural piles and presses them into the ground at high pressure without vibration and excessive noise. Courtesy Giken.


ADDITIONAL READING :

How Servomotors Work

Deep Foundation Construction

4 comments:

1GAE said...

Small detail; I think you are referring to the Kasai underground bike parking. Nishi-kasai is one station west from Kasai. Its underground bike parking is not automated. This said, while Kasai is Japan's largest bicycle parking facility in Japan, Nishi-kasai is the second. There are lots of bicycles in Edogawa-ku!

1GAE said...

Ron: the parking facilicity in Nishi-kasai is underground, but users have to manually put their bicycles on the racks-no buttons or bicycles disappearing in large underground barrels there. I'm a daily user of Kasai's automated bike parking and I've posted a few videos on youtube http://www.youtube.com/1GAE. Maybe when I have time I can go to Nishi-kasai's parking facility and shoot a few videos there. It's not as spectacular, but it's still better than what most cities have.

As for the video you've included in your post, I don't know which bike parking it refers to, but it's not in Edogawa-ku.

Anonymous said...

So what happens to the piles after the construction is over? Does it get removed or become part of the structure itself?

1GAE said...

This is what the Edogawa-ku, Kasai station automatic bicycle parking facility looks like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7uJm3O1Z-Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttyGS4HpgsE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG5Buujlrbg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtzMHd2P3BE&feature=related