MegaStructures

Grand Canyon Skywalk

Ultimate Skyscraper

Shanghai Super Tower

The design and construction of the Shanghai World Financial Centre which, at 101 floors high, will be China's tallest structure.

Beijing Water Cube

Just in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, workers are feverishly putting the finishing touches on the National Aquatics Centre – the Beijing Water Cube. A stroke of design genius, this Olympic Megastructure is a steel honeycomb-like frame enclosed entirely by a unique skin, modelled after soap bubbles. Using 90 kilometres worth of steel in 22,000 beams following no conventional straight lines, the Beijing Water Cube must be topped with 100,000 square metres of bubbles. Looking for a truly unique covering, the design team focuses on ETFE – a light-weight plastic invented to protect spaceships from cosmic radiation. Among ETFE’s unique properties, dot patterns on its surface can trap solar energy in the winter and reflect solar energy in the summer, keeping the building cool. The Beijing Water Cube is the largest ETFE construction in the world, and because of its honeycomb-like structure, 3,500 ETFE bubbles must be cut individually, and sized. Factor in that the dimensions have been created in Germany and must be translated into a Chinese database and the Beijing Water Cube becomes a bit of a logistical nightmare. Beijing’s Water Cube represents a true morphing of molecular science, architecture and structural engineering.

Sinking an Aircraft Carrier

A specialist demolition team attempt to create the largest artificial reef in the world by sinking the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany. As they battle through thick steel plating and hazardous waste, the workers are aided by marine architects, divers, engineering units and local authorities.

Sinking an Aircraft Carrier

Looks at the technological designs and construction of the huge cruiseliner "Freedom of the Seas".

Icelandic Super Dam

This episode looks at the Karahnjukar Hydroelectric Project in Iceland - an audacious engineering feat that includes the building of Europe's highest dam, the drilling of 30-mile-long tunnels and the construction of a gigantic underground power plant.

Beijing Water Cube

2010 environmental improvement plan in Beijing, China

Shanghai Super Tower

The renovated California Academy of Sciences - the world's largest green public building - emerges from the landscape of Golden Gate Park. Viewed from the air, the undulating living roof resembles a piece of the park flying as if by magic.

Bridge Breakdown

A historic bridge is being taken down and recycled, but the demolition team faces challenges while doing it.

Deep Earth Drillers

Mega Green Tech is in search of geothermal power.

Icelandic Super Dam

A team of experts mobilises to demolish, excavate and recycle a 25,000 ton dam built of concrete and steel. The pressure is on: they have just half the time needed to complete the job. Worse yet, their biggest challenge stands behind the old dam – one million cubic yards of boulders, gravel and sand that the river has stacked against it for nearly a century. To remove this blockade, the team gambles on a radical, dangerous plan that's never been tried before: turning the energy of a perfect storm against the debris. If they are not successful, a generation of endangered salmon returning to spawn may be wiped out.

World Trade Center Bahrain

Atom Smasher

The Large Hadron Collider is a titan of science. Built on an unsurpassed scale, scientists aim to capture the smallest particles in the universe.

South Pole Station

The World's Biggest Cruiseliner

Looks at the technological designs and construction of the huge cruiseliner "Freedom of the Seas".

Beijing Olympic Stadium (Building Green Beijing)

2010 environmental improvement plan in Beijing, China

Impossible Build

The renovated California Academy of Sciences - the world's largest green public building - emerges from the landscape of Golden Gate Park. Viewed from the air, the undulating living roof resembles a piece of the park flying as if by magic.

World Trade Center Bahrain