Demolishing buildings is usually a dangerous and messy affair, with either great expense and care taken to ensure debris doesn't pollute an entire city block - or, you know, not.
But thanks to a new solution developed in Japan, buildings could soon be demolished in far more elegant (and secretive) way.
The Taisei Ecological Reproduction System is designed to collapse buidlings more than 100 metres tall, but using cranes inside the structure to taken them apart.
It utilises temporary columns erected inside the structure to support the roof, which are then lowered by jacks.
The result is that each floor is taken down slowly, and one at a time - and the building seems to take itself apart.
It also reduces the noise of demolition, cuts dust by 90% and powers itself by using the force exerted on its hydraulics to power generators.
A video of the process posted online shows the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka in Tokyo seemngly disappear during its dismantling.
"We thought there needs to be an especially effective way for those over 100 meters," said Hideki Ichihara at Taisei Corp, according to the Japan Times.
The company now aims to sell the technology overseas.