I took a video of this building when I was visiting in Osaka (apologies for the quality, the video is quite zoomed in):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbJBwTHidGI&feature=c4-overvi...

I happened to spot this building in Osaka from the Floating Garden Building (http://www.osaka-info.jp/en/search/detail/sightseeing_3147.h...)

I had read the wikipedia article before, it was very exciting to see in person. Looking back it appears the wikipedia photo is taken from the same spot as my video.

Bonus: http://d.pr/i/Q7dn and http://d.pr/i/L9cV give you some more perspective on the surrounding area.

The quality's good. Actually, your whole video list is interesting! Japan is a beautiful place...

The "flat escalator section" made me laugh for some reason. Hadn't seen that before. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ1gZOrW5Ac&list=UU5gByMec2Bi...

Thank you! It was an incredible trip - Japan is so beautiful and unique.

Glad you enjoyed the flat escalator! For some reason it caught my eye. The vertical parking garage was neat too (and only a few blocks away in Kanazawa)!

That is really interesting in the context of broken escalators.

When the escalator breaks, you have the flat section to rest at, just like the real stairs. Most escalators make bad stairs, because they lack such sections, and frequently have unusual rise/run lengths.

totally smoked by that old guy who was walking up the steps, too.

We practically took the same picture. :-) http://bit.ly/1g4sxv0

Video going up the Umeda Sky Building escalator. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9G09GNGmG4 (Sorry about the orientation first 12 seconds)

Just saw your channel. It feels like you and I did the same trip! lol.

Koyasan coming down. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSc8vRg1DZk

You have some great videos in that playlist, thanks for sharing. I do however hate you for not explaining how this works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UU5gByMec2Bi49LEfJVrZTyw&.... I feel like a complete idiot! :)

The two rings are attached in one place and the whole thing is rotated. Think about it as putting a "<" shape on a base and rotating it.

I knew that's what it was, but then I tried to see the "two precessing hula hoops" and was like "cannot unsee..."

Wasn't something like this used to restrain Zod, Ursa, and Non in Superman?

It looks to me like its a static sculpture on a rotating base.

OT, Love your train ride through japan, cool ending with your reflection showing when going through the tunnel!

Thanks! I didn't expect the other videos to be getting so much love :) I am re-watching them myself!

Bonus video I just made public: http://youtu.be/ah17HPs7oDI

One of those odd moments when you are 30-something and still can get inspired by huge grass parks to do backflips.

Edit: After you mentioned it, I also found a pic I used that same reflection effect for! http://d.pr/i/INTD

In addition to the Congress Expressway, the building is also constructed over an Amtrak line that runs north-south to Union Station.

So it goes ground, train track, building, highway, building.

In London, there are two fake houses covering where an Underground line runs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leinster_Gardens

Satellite view: http://www.urban75.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/leins...

And Helmsley Building (Park avenue Viaduct): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmsley_Building

I think that viaduct has been blown up in at least a 1/2 dozen movies. :-)

Difficult to find a decent picture of it but both the Amtrak/NJT trains and Lincoln tunnel offramp pass through 450 West 33rd Street in Manhattan.

http://i.imgur.com/NgeSIDZ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/bEeGinN.jpg

Was this posted in reaction to the Hyperloop post? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6999556

Pretty much. After this comment in fact — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7000936

Apartments over the George Washington Bridge

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3682

Yes my first thought. There is perpetual heavy traffic under there. George Washington bridge is the busiest in the world.

Wow. That's pretty interesting. I'm sure it posed quite a few interesting architectural questions. Cool that it doesn't even touch the building while passing right through it.

Hong Kong has something similar, where the highway passes through a carparking building in Yau Ma Tei:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/18378305@N00/8572448579/

They had at least one Jackie Chan movie there.

Residential building on top of a highway in Berlin, Germany:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn%C3%BCberbauung_Schlang...

Among Robert Moses's unsuccessful development projects was an elevated expressway across Midtown Manhattan, with commercial development below the road and high-rises above it. One proposed route had the expressway passing right through the Empire State Building. I don't know how seriously this was considered - it's one thing to put up a building around a road and quite another to retrofit an existing building to put a road through it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Manhattan_Expressway

Then again La Defense in Paris is similarily mind blowing.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Arche

There was a video games museum at the top of the building, it is closed now, only boring offices remain.

Similarly mind-blowing: http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/sharpcentre/index.htm

have you ever been near the Grande Arche de la Défense in Paris? it's 110 meters tall. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Arche

Your "similar" one has "26 meter tall columns", the total height looks like around 30 meters. So no, not the same.

I guess this one doesn't have several lines of subway in the basement.

The adobe building in Utah has a road going under it.

http://blog.kezu.com.au/page/2/

(Disclosure: I work there)

I wonder how loud it is in that building, next to or below the highway.

Not quite the same thing, but a 6-lane freeway (GA400) goes under the Atlanta Financial Center. http://www.southeastroads.com/georgia200/ga-400_toll_nb_exit...

あああ... なるほど...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaOF6lDnRUk

I was hoping they'd show what it sounded like on the 4th-8th floors. Can't be optimal working conditions.

According to wiki, those floors are unoccupied with extra shielding to protect the building.

Berlin: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn%C3%BCberbauung_Schlang...

Reminds me of the Tay House on Charing Cross Podium, a building straddling the M8 motorway in Glasgow, Scotland, near my office: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M8_Bridge_to_Nowhere and http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Wfm_m8_br...

Similar but nowhere near as intense in Manhattan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Avenue_Viaduct

Berlin has something similar with a subway since ~1900 (along with the house that can be found in other comments):

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=...

(scroll all the way down)

"Normally, highways are still built underground in these cases, and passing through a building is an extremely rare occurrence."

Did they mean underground? Seems like an underground motorway would be even more impressive or unusual than this building.

Newton, MA: https://secure.flickr.com/photos/iccdude/8603939901/

Shoot, this just makes me miss Osaka. How could I have gone to Osaka and missed this?

I'll keep an eye out for it next time I'm there.

When cars are driving on the vertical sides of buildings, then maybe that might be impressive

A la Minority Report?

check out the Meguro Sky Garden in Tokyo, recently completed. It covers a freeway interchange

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ20...

Here's a video of driving through one. I don't see what's so special about it though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouPfeHJZzzM

Japan really has the coolest freeways.