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

22 episodes will be broadcast over the next two weeks

    Earthquakes & Exoskeletons
    Reborn Buildings & Sacred Grounds
    Canals & Curves
    Wings & Waterlines
    Space Homes & Glass Waves
    Riverparks & Artworks
    Ecobuilds & Earthquakes
    Towers & Roofs
    Upside Down & Under Sea
    Sculptures & Skyscrapers
  • Earthquakes & Exoskeletons

    Milwaukee commissions Calatrava to design a museum with 90-ton wings that take flight; Oslo tears down its national ski jump and rebuilds it for the World Championships; and in LA, a 235-foot tower is wrapped in steel bands.
    Upcoming
  • Reborn Buildings & Sacred Grounds

    In Oklahoma, a sacred spiral mound rises on a former oilfield, honouring 39 tribes; London's crumbling Battersea Power Station is reborn with two million new bricks. And in Spain, Frank Gehry crowns a historic winery.
    Upcoming
  • Canals & Curves

    Witness amazing buildings, bridges, lifts, and other structures that pushed structural concrete engineering to the edge.
    Upcoming
  • Wings & Waterlines

    Lord Foster's five-winged steel towers cool Abu Dhabi's national museum naturally; Robots 3D-print a steel bridge in Amsterdam & a concrete tower in Switzerland; and in Sydney, engineers pump out the harbour to build a fish market.
    Upcoming
  • Space Homes & Glass Waves

    NASA's 3D-printed Mars habitat rehearses human life on the red planet. Seoul's historic city hall gains a 13-story glass wave. And in Dallas, 68,000 square feet of concrete galleries balance on legs that want to splay open under.
    Upcoming
  • Riverparks & Artworks

    Traveling to New York, Denver and Nice, France to visit Little Island, the Denver Museum of Art and La Tête Carrée; the secrets to how they were built are revealed.
    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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