The Golden Horn Bridge designed byLeonardo da Vinciin 1502 is finally being built , although while the great Renaissance humankind originally intended the structure to cut across the Bosphorus in Istanbul , its belated construction is in fact remove plaza in Juuka , Finland . Furthermore , instead of creating the bridge out of stone , as per the original conception , the engineers behind the project are using ice .
cross 35 meters ( 115 foot ) across a target , the so - calledBridge in Icewill be the longest ice bridge ever constructed and is expected to be completed by February 13 . This , however , will depend on the weather condition , with the threat of unseasonable affectionateness lift the prospect of the span not freezing apace enough to meet this deadline .
fortuitously , the conditions have so far been idealistic for the construction of the bridge , with temperature in Juuka hovering around the -30 ° C ( -22 ° F ) score since workplace begin on December 28 , 2015 . To create the structure , around 150 students led by a team from theEindhoven University of Technologyare working in shift around the clock , control equipment is never leave behind idle so that it does n’t freeze .
Shown is da Vinci ’s original sketch for the Golden Horn Bridge . Public Domain
The bridge is being created using ice inculcate with paper fibers , which make it up to three time stiff and 20 times more malleable than normal methamphetamine hydrochloride . To construct it , the squad are spraying thin layers of this salmagundi of water and newspaper onto the surface of a giant inflatable round mould , at which tip it freezes almost straight off . Each layer is only a few milimeters thick , and once enough of them have been construct up to provide sufficient stability for the ice to stand on its own , the mold – which has been compared to an enormous balloon – is remove .
Once terminate , the span will be open to pedestrians only , although the team are confident that it could also support the weight of a vehicle . To evidence this , they will drive a car over the bridge during the first step ceremony . Later in the year , when the ice melts , the newspaper fibers will be used for compost .
