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Manmade concrete brick aims to save marine life

Marine ecologists have developed an innovative concrete brick that is designed to mimic natural rock and coral. The ECOncrete range of products have been designed to enhance biodiversity and marine and coastal infrastructure on urban coastlines. The business was founded by marine ecologists Dr Shimrit Perkol-Finkel and Dr Ido Sella and produces custom-made bricks for each location to encourage growth of flora and fauna.

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8,000 tonne cantilever hoisted into place

An 8,000 tonne, 227m-long cantilever whose structural steel weighs more than the iron in the Eiffel Tower, has been lifted into place to join together two towers in Dubai.

The Link forms part of developer Ithra Dubai’s One Za’abeel mixed-use project. Main contractor Alec Engineering and Contracting embraced 4D modelling with Bentley’s Synchro for the project, which it was claimed knocked 70 days off the programme and saved £12.5m.

Bricklaying robot builds three bedroom house

An automatic bricklaying machine developed by Pocklington-based Construction Automation is constructing the first home in the UK to be built by a robot. The Automatic Brick Laying Robot (ABLR) started work on the three-bedroom home in Everingham in Yorkshire this week. It will lay all the bricks, blocks, and mortar. Only two people are required to work on each house – a labourer to load the machine and a skilled person to install tie bars, damp courses and lintels and to do the pointing.