How Did They Build That?
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  • Celebrating one of humanities biggest engineering achievements, the International Space Station, a meteor proof lab bigger than a football field, constructed by astronauts traveling 250 miles above us at 17,500 miles an hour.
  • Paying tribute to the brave, gravity-defying design of the U.S. National Medal of Honor Museum; traveling to Singapore for a look at a leaning tower of gambling, then exploring a New York City office building that lets the sun shine through.
  • Peek inside a cloud-inspired library in Canada that's built over a live railway; see how clever engineering helped a huge Seattle skyscraper go up without harming its iconic neighbour, then cross an Australian bridge that floats above a busy river.
  • Defy gravity in an Amsterdam high-rise that hangs 164 feet above the water; marvel at three interconnected towers in Chicago that have a road running through them; examine the revolutionary framework of Paris' controversial Pompidou Centre.
  • Witness amazing buildings, bridges, lifts, and other structures that pushed structural concrete engineering to the edge.
  • A 284ft wooden skyscraper built from 1,200 bespoke pieces tests fire safety limits in Milwaukee; a decaying Amsterdam crane track transforms into glass offices; a needle-thin tower stacks 28 apartments onto a 21ft-wide plot in Melbourne, Australia.
  • Building an eco-friendly visitor center in the permafrost on Colorado's Pikes Peak tests the team. A museum is constructed in a disused dry dock that's in danger of collapse.
  • A museum building bends 1,100-glass tubes to form a facade and tunnels below the water table; a vast 11-storey glass atrium HQ is built on the former Berlin Wall site to represent unity.
  • Examine the sightlines in Los Angeles's SoFi Stadium, which sits right in the flight path of LAX; celebrate the ingenuity of the inexperienced crew that built a monumental skyscraper in Malta; visit a forest tower designed for testing elevators.
  • On inadequate foundations, San Francisco's MoMA triples in size creating an exterior light enough to prevent collapse; a 1970s Sydney skyscraper is recycled into a 21st century tower; in Dallas, a five-acre park is created.

Record to Watch Later

16 episodes will be broadcast over the next two weeks

    Upside Down & Under Sea
    Sculptures & Skyscrapers
    Summits & Spires
    Super Stadiums & Extraordinary Elevators
    Breakthroughs & Bridges
    High Waters & Harsh Winds
    Speedcore & Steambend
    Heights & Balance
    Tricks & Trains
    Steep & Stunning
  • Upside Down & Under Sea

    Visiting the Vancouver House, Norway's Under restaurant and the Seattle Central Library to discover how these visionary buildings were created.
    Upcoming
  • Sculptures & Skyscrapers

    Engineers create impossibly shaped buildings: Albany's Egg, a huge, sculpted theatre space, fit for a Rockefeller; a floating fortress in LA, protecting $2bn in art; and giant New York offices towering over America's busiest com.
    Upcoming
  • Summits & Spires

    Zaha Hadid cuts the top off a mountain and builds a museum inside. A Vancouver tower rises clean over a 115-year-old church. And starchitect Santiago Calatrava spans 7 live railway tracks with a column-free glass and steel station.
    Upcoming
  • Super Stadiums & Extraordinary Elevators

    Examine the sightlines in Los Angeles's SoFi Stadium, which sits right in the flight path of LAX; celebrate the ingenuity of the inexperienced crew that built a monumental skyscraper in Malta; visit a forest tower designed for testing elevators.
    Upcoming
  • Breakthroughs & Bridges

    Visiting London's Gherkin, Seattle's Evergreen Point Floating Bridge and Lyon's Musée des Confluences to uncover how and why they were built.
    Upcoming
  • High Waters & Harsh Winds

    Defy gravity in an Amsterdam high-rise that hangs 164 feet above the water; marvel at three interconnected towers in Chicago that have a road running through them; examine the revolutionary framework of Paris' controversial Pompidou Centre.
    Upcoming
How Did They Build That?

More about How Did They Build That?

Exploring the engineering and architectural masterpieces like The Copper in Manhattan to Gardens By the Bay in Singapore.

Starring

Scott Rummel

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