An 85-year-old, 7,600-tonne building is relocated 203ft in China using 198 robotic legs

An 85-year-old, 7,600-tonne building in China was given 198 robotic legs and walked 203 feet to a new location.

The bizarre-looking engineering project took place in Shanghai, where the historic Lagena Primary School had to be moved to make way for a new commercial development.

Rather than demolishing the five-story building, engineers found a way to lift the entire structure and carefully shuffle it to a new location.

And watching the giant building slowly creep along on its robotic feet is every bit as funny as it sounds.

The building with robotic legs needed to make room for Shanghai’s new commercial center

The Lagena Primary School was built in 1935, meaning the building was already 85 years old when engineers were tasked with the futuristic and impossible challenge of moving it in 2020.

The problem was that the five-story structure wasn’t exactly an easy shape to transport.

The building had an unusual T-shaped design, while the route to its new home was far from a straight line.

Engineers also needed to rotate the building during the journey, making traditional methods such as placing it on rails or a flatbed much more complicated.

So instead of tearing down the historic school and rebuilding it somewhere else, engineers came up with a much more futuristic solution.

They essentially gave the building robotic legs, because bionic limbs are not just for humans.

Workers installed 198 hydraulic supports underneath the structure, creating what was dubbed a ‘walking machine’.

The supports were split into groups that could raise and lower themselves independently, allowing the building to inch forward in a movement that resembled walking.

Sensors helped control the movement, ensuring the huge structure stayed stable as it slowly progressed along its route.

The whole thing looks remarkably bizarre in footage of the project, with the building appearing to take tiny steps across the ground.

Back in my day, I walked to school, not the other way around…

The robotic system didn’t exactly turn the school into a speed demon, it took 18 days for the 7,600-tonne building to travel around 62 meters, or 203 feet, to its new location.

Engineers also rotated the building by roughly 21 degrees as it made its journey.

It might sound like an enormous amount of effort to move a building less than the length of a soccer field, but the unusual route and shape of the structure made precision more important than speed.

The robot leg technology was developed in China by Shanghai Evolution Shift, with the company reportedly creating the ‘walking machine’ concept in 2018.

Engineers said the robotic legs could save around 20 percent more time compared with alternative approaches, while also allowing the structure to change direction and orientation.

Once the school reached its new home, it wasn’t simply going to become another old building surrounded by skyscrapers.

The plan was to renovate the former school and transform it into a center focused on cultural education and heritage preservation.

That makes the whole strange situation a little easier to understand.

Instead of wiping out an 85-year-old piece of Shanghai’s history to make space for something new, engineers managed to move the building out of the way while keeping the structure intact.

And while a 7,600-tonne building slowly wandering down the street on loads of robot legs sounds like something made up in a fever dream, fact is weirder than fiction.