🏗 Making Concrete Look Sexy?

RCE Merch | Patreon | Join My Discord

Hello Fellow Engineers!

Bridges! Temples! Cats in space! We've got it all. This week, we’re making concrete look sexy, hurling marbles into oblivion, and giving architects the side-eye they so thoroughly deserve. From India’s iconic Lotus Temple to a glass bridge built to trigger your fight-or-flight, we’re celebrating the beautiful madness of engineering.

Also: Paddy gets a stick upgrade. It’s not helpful. But it is huge.

Let’s dive into it 👇

This week, we’re giving away THREE copies of Dicey Chess! ♟️🎲

It's strategy meets RNG, and you’ll either feel like a genius or an absolute fraud (but in a fun way).

And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for… 🥁

🏆 zymunt 🏆
🏆 akendall1868 🏆
🏆 bmgosselin 🏆

Check your email for your key and prepare to outwit, outroll, and out-blunder your opponents!

Missed out? No sweat, more giveaways are on the way.

Want in on the next one? Vote for a bridge in the poll in this edition! 🌉🔥

👷‍♂️ Truss Me, I’m an Engineer…

The Lotus Temple – Proof That Concrete Can Be Sexy

This week, we’re flying over to New Delhi to admire a building that looks like a flower and stands like a fortress: the Lotus Temple.

Now, the official story is that an architect had a vision of a giant marble lotus. Cute.

But what really happened? He handed that sketch to some engineers and said, “Good luck.”

Spoiler alert: We crushed it.

The temple’s made up of 27 petal-like slabs of marble-covered concrete, arranged in clusters of three to form nine sides.

No internal columns. No steel skeleton.

It’s all ribbed shell construction. Every petal is a carefully calculated hollow shell, designed to handle wind, seismic stress, and, presumably, the unbearable weight of architectural ego.

The Stats (because numbers > watercolor sketches):

• Height: 34.27 meters

• Capacity: 2,500 people

• Marble: Imported all the way from Greece!

• Support Columns: Zero. Let that sink in.

So next time someone points at the Lotus Temple and says, “What a beautiful piece of architecture,” you know what to tell them…

⚡ Cool Links

🌉 Bordeaux's Mega Bridge
The Simone Veil Bridge boasts Europe's widest concrete deck, doubling as a public space. Finally, a bridge that accommodates both traffic and architects’ egos.

🛣️ Kicking Horse Canyon: Where Engineers Tame Nature
A $331 million project in British Columbia transformed a perilous highway into a safe passage with four bridges and nine viaducts. Architects, take note: this is how you blend form with function.

🐱 Stealth, Soap, and Space Cats
Play as a space insurance agent rescuing cube-headed cats using banana peels and pepper. It's like Die Hard meets Home Alone in zero gravity.

🌾 Farming, Mechs, and Time-Travel Romance
This upcoming game combines survival, factory automation, ghost hunting, and mechs. It's as if someone threw every game genre into a blender—and it works.

🏙️ Cities: Skylines 2 - Bridges and Ports DLC Incoming
A new DLC is on the horizon, adding over 100 assets for marine industries and complex water-based landmarks. ​

👀 Ziplines and Tubeways in Timberborners
Beaver city-builders rejoice! New features include ziplines, tubeways, and revised maps. It's like SimCity, but with more wood and fewer architects.

🐕‍🦺 Paddy’s Corner

Stick upgrade time!!

Paddy The Apprentice ditches his starter stick and goes full beast mode with a massive upgrade, dragging his new weapon of choice through the forest like a true engineering prodigy.

Is it practical? No.

Is it hilarious? Absolutely.

👾 Indie Game of the Week:

Ever wondered what Balatro would look like if it collided with a bag of marbles and a physics engine with a grudge? Say hello to Ringer, the game where you're one bad bounce away from bankruptcy, and yes, I did try to do snooker trick shots... badly.

It's my Indie Game of the Week, and it's way better than it sounds.

Like Balatro, but instead of poker hands, you’re yeeting marbles into a chaos ring full of point zones and sabotage spheres.

🎯 Want in on the madness? Grab Ringer now on Steam and save 20%!

It’s time for a Bridge Review!

And this week, we’re heading 300 meters straight up and immediately regretting it… Welcome to the Zhangjiajie Glass Bridge, a.k.a. the "Nope Walkway to Nope Canyon" in China’s Hunan province.

This isn’t just a bridge. It’s a full-on engineering flex in the form of a transparent panic attack.

You can keep your delicate curves and reflective surfaces, Derek the Architect, because this one’s built by someone who cares more about tensile strength than artistic self-expression.

Let’s break it down:

Engineering Feats:

✅ Longest and highest glass bridge when opened — because “world record” is the only acceptable design brief.
✅ Suspended with four steel cables and minimal supports = max views, max terror.
✅ Designed for 800 people at once and survived hammer tests AND a car driving over it (because engineers don’t trust anyone).
✅ Also features a bungee jump, because if the glass doesn’t test your nerves, a controlled fall off the side will.

You know what this bridge screams?
“An ENGINEER was in charge… and mildly unhinged.”

No arches. No mood lighting. Just raw suspended steel and a constant threat of vertigo.

Final Score: 8.7/10
(Would've been higher if the architect hadn’t tried to ghost the whole thing with glass.)

🏗 r/realcivilengineer Spotlight