Over the centuries, humans have done remarkable things including building incredible underground structures.
We can only imagine the challenges engineers and builders have had to overcome. From unstable soils to weak bedrock to hydrostatic pressure, forces of nature seem to conspire against their plans.
But they somehow managed to overcome these challenges and developed the world’s deepest and largest underground structures.
The World’s Deepest Subway Station
Typical subway stations like the ones under New York City are over 100 feet underground. However, this is only half the depth of the world’s deepest subway station located in Kyiv, Ukraine.
At 346 feet underground, the Arsenal Station beats all other subway stations in terms of depth. The station is located at a hilltop with the stops all being at ground level.
Engineers didn’t want the subway to go up and down the hill.
they opted to build through the hill making it the deepest subway station in the world.
The World’s Deepest Basement
Known for its amazing above ground and outside look, the Sydney Opera Household the record for being the world’s deepest underground basement.at 120 feet deep, the incredible architecture is an iconic structure anyone would love to see.
The Sydney Opera House is amazingly engineered and built to meet all regulations for a parking garage of its kind, well curved with proper air circulation and fire response makes it one of a kind.
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The Longest Underground Tunnel
A major attraction for winter skiers and summer hikers, the Swiss Alps is a magical landscape comprising high peaks, cool lakes, and sheer valleys.
Beyond this wall of peaks lies another phenomenal man-made structure, the 35-mile long Gotthard Base Tunnel. It’s the world’s longest and first flat underground tunnel.
During the tunnel’s construction, it’s estimated that 72 different types of rocks weighing a massive 28 million pounds were excavated.
The tunnel goes 8,040 feet down the earth, and at its deepest part, the temperature reaches 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
The World’s Deepest Building Foundation
Every building has a foundation and its depth will depend on the size and height of the building.
In this case, the deepest building foundation in the world has nothing to do with the tallest building in the world. Salesforce Tower located in San Francisco is known for having the deepest foundation in the world.
The tower takes pride in its 310 feet deep foundation which is close to a third of the tower’s height of 1070 feet.
However, this is greatly attributed to the number of earthquakes that frequently hit San Francisco. The deep foundation makes the building safe from tremors and quakes.
During its construction, engineers and builders had to battle different architectural challenges including a weak bedrock.
The Biggest Underground City
It is amazing how modern architecture has contributed to the construction of major underground cities.
However, Cappadocia in Turkey stands out among many for being the biggest and one of the oldest underground cities in the world.
Derinkyu has been in existence since around 1200 BC. In ancient times, the city was used as a battling center but people stopped using it for a very long time until it was eventually forgotten.
It was not until 1963 when a Turkish man accidentally found an entrance to the city while knocking down a wall that was in his basement.
Since then, explorers have discovered more than 600 other entrances to the underground city.
The Deepest Underground Research Center
Scientists usually go deep down the earth when performing extremely sensitive tests or experiments.
The reason being cosmic radiation on the earth’s surface will interfere with the test results. Deep down the earth, cosmic radiation is reduced by a factor of 10 million.
The Jinping Research Center in China holds the record for being the deepest underground research facility in the world.
The lab is located at 8,000 ft underground. Previously, the area was a gold mine. Despite being deep down the earth, scientists don’t need a complicated transport system to access it.
They can drive in and out of the site.
Conclusion
Underground architectural marvels abound and these are the most famous. Some are old while others are a few decades old.
Their age notwithstanding, the builders had to battle many things to erect these structures.
If you ever get a chance to explore them, you’ll better appreciate the time, resources, and efforts that the whole architectural and construction crew put into bringing them to life.
