All language subtitles for How.Did.They.Build.That.S04E09.Super.Stadiums.and.Extraordinary.Elevators.1080p.FUBO.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-FFG_track3_[eng]

How do you build
an extraordinary twisting

tower on top
of two protected buildings

in a country that’s never built
a skyscraper before?

We never knew it was so complex

and it was going to take so much
time.

How do you
construct a stadium

so impressive,
it becomes a champion

in its own right?

This was on a scale

beyond anything else
that I had ever done before.

And on the edge
of the Black Forest,

how do you build a test center

for creating the elevators
of the future?

I read it in a newspaper

and I thought,
actually, this was a joke.

Welcome to a world where
anything is possible.

The space where innovation
and creativity collide.

This isn’t just impressive.
It’s revolutionary.

Where the only limit
is human imagination.

This wasn’t just
ambitious; it was audacious.

No one had ever
attempted anything like it.

Unpacking the miracles
and mysteries of construction.

Sometimes buildings
can change the world.

And this is one of ’em.

To ask...
How Did They Build That?

Mercury Tower was one of
the last projects approved

by Zaha Hadid.

And, boy, did the celebrated
architect go out in style.

Zaha’s team gave the final
design an ingenious twist,

and thanks
to that dynamic curvature,

the building seems
to defy the laws of gravity.

33 stories of glass and twisted
steel slicing through the sky,

Mercury Tower is
Malta’s tallest building.

But Zaha Hadid’s design
is only part

of what makes it surprising...

...because Malta doesn’t have
any other skyscrapers.

Instead, the tiny Mediterranean
island nation is famous

for its historic
limestone buildings.

But in 2016, one local develope
decides to change all of that.

I wanted to do
something really special.

I really wanted to build
an icon for Malta.

A self-made millionaire,

Joseph got into development
at a young age.

I started from nothing.

I bought a garage
and an apartment.

I transformed it to, like,
a mini market,

you know, and I sold it
and made some money.

And this was...
I was, like, 18 years old, yeah?

He built his real estate career

one concrete slab at a time.

And now he’s bettin’ it all

to build Malta’s
first skyscraper.

Joseph is funding
much of the project himself.

A big name in Malta,

he’s an unknown
on the world stage.

But he isn’t going to let a
little something like

that stop him.

So we just Googled "top ten
architects in the world."

And before you know it,

Joseph’s dialing up the queen
of curve herself:

Zaha Hadid.

Zaha Hadid was a total
game changer, a rule breaker,

the first woman ever to win
a Pritzker Prize.

Basically, that’s the Oscar
of architecture.

Her clients were usually
global players,

major governments,
global institutions.

They weren’t just a random guy
from a little island

in the Med cold-calling
her out of nowhere.

But Joseph heads for London.

Joseph pretty much
showed up in our office one day.

He met with Zaha, and Zaha
was very intrigued.

She had sympathy for anybody
who’s got a good sense of humor

and he does have
a sense of humor,

so they kind of clicked.

And yeah, she... she really took
on the challenge.

Designing the first
skyscraper on an island famed

for its historic architecture
comes with responsibility.

We were very aware
that we were building in Malta.

It’s a small island.

There was a little bit of a nee
of not going overboard.

So we wanted to have one element
that would stand out.

And this was the twist.

The rest of the tower
is actually,

for our standards, quite
controlled... maybe.

Then, just months
after drawing up her designs,

Zaha Hadid dies
at the age of 65.

It was a very, very hard
and difficult time,

but it also gave us
the challenge to make sure

that these designs...

we would really deliver them
in the best possible way.

Honoring Hadid’s vision

with Malta’s first skyscraper
will be no small task.

Mercury tower will reach
33 stories,

including 256 luxury apartments
and come with a dramatic twist.

Plus, a shopping center
and hotel beside it.

But the site is small,

sloping and wedged
between historic vaults

and a listed structure.

They’ll have to build over them

without crushing
what lies beneath.

Halfway up comes the twist.

It has to be made from steel,

a material the crew has
never worked with,

using cranes that could buckle
under the load.

And they must build it quickly.

Joseph needs to get
his money back fast.

Joseph’s first job is putting
together a team to build it.

Malta does low rise:
three, four, five floors.

That’s normal. A skyscraper?
There’s no local experience.

Yet Joseph insists
on using local crews.

He said, "I want a tower."

I want to build it with his own
really trusted builders.

But he said,

"I’ve never built anything
higher than, I think,

six or seven floors."

Obviously,
this was a big concern for us.

There is a lot of challenges
there,

but I think that one
of the most relevant one was

to adapt everything to...
to a local knowledge.

When the team starts excavation

for the foundation in 2017,

they have more immediate things
to worry about.

We were faced with
this small plot, very tilted,

difficult to set a tower on.

Worse than that,

there are two derelict but
protected landmarks on the site

Mercury House,
built in 1903 as part

of the island’s
telecommunications hub,

which boasts a stunning
limestone facade.

And there are two underground
vaults created during

the Cold War.

Obviously the most important
thing was how are we going

to build without damaging these
heritage buildings?

And that includes
cutting away

over 4,000,000 cubic feet of
limestone...

...before they can lay
the tower’s foundation.

There was a very kind
of surgical operation

of removing the limestone
around them.

In July 2017,
the foundation has been laid.

But the difficult work is far
from over,

because somehow Hadid’s
397-foot-tall tower is gonna

be built right over the top
of the protected Mercury House.

We have to figure out
how to transfer the load

for the upper columns
to the basement

in order to avoid any damage
in this building.

It sounds impossible

to sit a 34,000-ton tower
over the top

of a delicate,
century-old building.

But the engineers
have a solution.

It’s called an A-frame
because, well,

it’s shaped like an A.

Two angled supports
meet at a peak,

creating a strong,
stable triangle.

That shape naturally
diverts the weight

away from the house
to the ground.

In November 2018,
with the A-frame in place,

work starts on the rest
of the tower.

For Joseph,
the stress is starting to show.

I’m financing this project.
It’s different for them.

They’re used
to governments, you know,

to... to billionaires,
you know, all this stuff.

It was different.

With the pressure of
the loan of millions of dollars

and millions more
of his own money sunk into it,

Joseph needs the build
to be finished quick.

He wanted to build everything
in two and a half years,

which is crazy.

In Malta,
the team building the island’s

first ever skyscraper

is under pressure to get it
finished in two

and a half years.

Even for seasoned
high rise crews,

that timeline would
be a stretch.

But Joseph’s team has never
built a skyscraper before,

and they’re learning as they go

This scale of project did
introduce some challenges they

weren’t necessarily used to.

To help, specialty
contractors are brought in

for a crash course
in skyscraper construction.

But for Joseph, things
still need to move faster.

He was able
to mobilize a workforce

which could effectively
work on a 24-hour operation,

doing various shifts during
the day and through the night.

Incredibly, they built
a floor every 13 days...

...faster than many seasoned
high rise construction crews.

This is how we did it.

And it was a...
it was a huge challenge, yeah?

In early 2019,

they reach the ninth floor,

but now they faced Zaha’s
distinctive twist.

The twist was by far Joseph’s
biggest headache.

Normally, the columns
in the building all line up

and the forces flow
straight down to the foundation

But twist it,
and the columns shift.

The loads no
longer transfer easily,

and it puts the tower
under serious stress.

We needed
something to take this load,

to pull this load
back into the foundations.

The engineers design
a truss which will transfer

the load across the twisted
section of the tower.

The question then is what
to build it from.

The starting point was to try
and have everything in concrete,

but it was very clear that...

that, that twist
could only really

be achieved in structural steel.

The problem is Joseph

and his crew have never worked
with steel.

There was one moment
when they say, "Oh no,

no, no, no, we have
to build it in concrete."

He takes a little convincing.

And still you only
have to assemble the element

by bolting or whatever on site.

And this is going to be
faster and easier.

So they decide, "Okay,
let’s do it in steel."

It overcomes one hurdle,
but creates another.

That was when we did the mistake

of not ordering the steel,
like, a year before.

Building Mercury Tower
is a serious learning curve.

And with no steel mills
on Malta,

Joseph settles on Sicily,
60 miles away.

But it creates
a six-month delay,

putting serious pressure
on his finances.

We never knew it was so complex

and it was going to take
so much time to get here.

In March 2019,
the steel arrives.

The site is so small,

the huge 300-ton truss has had

to be specially designed
just so it can

be positioned into place
when it gets there.

We have to subdivide
your elements to make sure

that the cranes could handle
that weight.

Then they have to be
welded together a hundred feet

in the air.

This twist was mostly
done by an Italian contractor.

I think that the locals
didn’t like it.

It was very challenging
for him as well.

I could really see
Joseph panicking because of los

of control, in a way,
which... understandable.

What he told us was
that we overdesigned it.

It was too complicated.

"Why did you give me
this headache?

Why did I even
start this tower?"

He was the developer.
He was the investor.

He had lots of hats,

and dealing with all of them
at the same time is difficult.

I have messages,

voice messages from Joe
from time

to time, saying "Tomorrow!"
or "Today!"

A year into the construction,

Mercury Tower’s steel twist
is assembled.

And by October 2020,
it’s reaching full height.

But the twisting design
throws Joseph one final hurdle.

This was a Zaha Hadid building.

Nothin’ about it was simple.

The facade was
so complicated, you know?

The twists, the curves...

It was a nightmare
for myself, you know?

Used by Hadid’s team
on other buildings,

they opt for
glass fiber-reinforced concrete

It’s another material Joseph
hasn’t used before,

but is perfect for the job,
being as strong as concrete,

but able to be molded
around the twists and turns.

Her designs are fluid,
sculptural, complex by design.

Almost a third of the exterior
demands unique panels.

It’s like assembling
a 3D puzzle in mid-air,

where every panel has to align
within a fraction of an inch.

The technology, the workmanship,

the materials
were all challenging.

That’s when it became--

it became
really stressful and hard.

In Malta,
the team building one of

star architect Zaha Hadid’s
last designs

makes the final push to install
the intricate exterior,

one sculpted shape at a time.

And in November 2023,

two years
past the original deadline

and 53 million US dollars more
than Joseph originally planned,

the twisting Mercury Tower
is finished.

This building
is incredibly striking.

The structure...
it’s in-your-face,

it’s on the outside,

and it’s something I’ll be
really proud of to talk

to my grandchildren
about in years to come.

I mean, it’s once in a lifetime

let’s put it this way,

especially if you’re
a local architect.

You will never work on something
of such a scale

and with very talented people.

Built almost entirely by locals

with no previous experience
working on towers,

it twists 397 feet
above the city,

giving residents stunning views
of the sea.

And below,
a tranquil spa has been created

sitting inside the Cold War
vaults without damaging them.

All of the plumbing

and wiring is hidden beneath
the raised floors

and false ceilings
they’ve created.

The vaults remain untouched.

More than a building,

it’s a tribute
to the genius of Zaha Hadid.

This is one of the
last projects Zaha signed off.

So we had to be as faithful as
possible to what her vision was

for the project.

This extraordinary
skyscraper redefines the skylin

and stands as a testament
to the determination of one man

And remember, it’s the
highest tower in Malta to date.

So if they build one which
is higher than mine,

then I have
to build another tower, yeah?

SoFi Stadium was designed

to host global events like
the Super Bowl, the Olympics,

and the FIFA World Cup.

But the clock was ticking
as architects were challenged

with getting it up, ready,

and open for business
in record breaking time.

And like all great athletes,

when the pressure was on,
they brought home the gold.

And, boy,
did they do it in style.

It cost 5.5 billion US dollars
to build,

takes 17,000 workers
and four years to finish it,

and is topped with a transparen
canopy the size

of almost 21 football fields.

I gotta say, this was a
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

This structure has
the promise to change

the lives of those
who live around it.

Because just on the strength
of one building,

a city’s fortunes can rise.

And they can fall.

Built in 1967,

the LA Forum was the home

to the Los Angeles Lakers
basketball team

for over three decades.

The Fabulous Forum was
the epicenter of sports

in Los Angeles
for so many years.

But then it fell into disrepair

The teams moved away and the
community fell on harder times.

The local economy flatlined.
And unemployment?

That shot through the roof:
doubling to a staggering 17%.

But in 2014, Stan Kroenke,
the owner of the LA Rams,

has a dream of giving Inglewood
a new iconic venue.

300 acres will be redeveloped,

a whole new neighborhood
built from scratch.

Mr. Kroenke wanted to create
a stadium that was world class.

He wanted to create something
unique that represented,

you know, the city as a global
entertainment destination.

Global architects HKS
come up with a stunning design

for a huge stadium,
complete with a YouTube theater

landscaping, cinemas,
and shopping units.

First, they’ll need to figure
out a way how

to construct such a tall
building right under

a flight path,

and it needs to be able to stan
up to Mother Nature

in one of the world’s most
seismically active cities.

They need to be able to protect
the 70,000 spectators

from the heat of the sun,

but also allow
light to flood in.

And they’ll want every seat
to have the best view

in the house,
all 70,000 of them.

When we designed SoFi Stadium,

we truly believed it could be
the best stadium in the world.

It also needs to be
constructed quickly,

because LA has been picked
to host the 2022 Super Bowl.

This was... on a...
on a scale...

beyond anything else
that I had ever done before.

Their first challenge is

Los Angeles International
Airport.

Because the building is within
two and a half miles of LAX,

We’re right between both
the north and south runways.

There are FAA restrictions
for the height of the building.

The Federal Aviation Authority

won’t let them
build above 150 feet.

But to get enough seating,

the stadium has to be
at least 250 feet tall.

Designing within
that height limit was going

to be a challenge that we were
going to have to address...

...quite quickly.

It was determined that we needed

to embed the stadium
in the ground.

In the fall of 2016,
construction begins.

It takes the team months

to dig a gigantic 22-acre hole
that’s 110 feet deep.

Then, Mother Nature
throws a wrench in the works.

Before we had a chance
to put irrigation in,

the largest
rainstorm in the history

of Southern California
came through for about a month.

We got this massive,

once-in-a-hundred-year rain
event.

Too much water was
coming into there.

They couldn’t pump it out
fast enough.

Pumping out
over 20 million gallons

of water is a massive job.

And sets back their schedule.

But with the Super Bowl looming
the team pushes on.

By March 2017,

the site is finally dry,
and they’re ready

to tackle their next problem.

Most of coastal
California is what we’d call

a very high seismic risk.

In Inglewood, there’s a fault

that runs alongside
Newport-Inglewood,

but there’s
also the San Andreas fault.

So right from the start,

we knew we had to design with...
with seismic risk in mind.

What’s more,

burying part of the stadium
puts it at even greater risk.

Shallow underground structures
are actually way more vulnerable

during earthquakes
compared to deeper ones.

When a quake hits,

the soil around them can
literally turn to liquid,

and that puts an enormous
pressure on the concrete,

cracking it or even causing
the walls to cave inward.

In a severe earthquake,

we would be holding
a lot of earth in place,

and the deformation
of the earth was going

to transfer directly into
deformation of the structure.

They came up with a clever
engineering solution:

separate the structure
from the soil around it.

Instead of locking the stadium
into the earth,

they created a gap,
what’s called a seismic moat.

But the gap won’t absorb
the force from the earthquake.

The system that was proposed
by the contractor is called

mechanically stabilized Earth,
and there are actually straps,

miles and miles of straps,
that holds the soil in place.

First, they lay down
a layer of compacted soil.

Then a long plastic strap

is stretched straight
back into the hill.

Another layer of soil
goes on top,

then another strap,
over and over.

The layers build up,

each strap gripping the earth
like a seatbelt.

Mechanically
stabilized earth walls...

Instead of fighting
against earthquakes,

these walls flex with them.

Think about how steel
reinforces concrete.

Here, polymer strips
reinforce the dirt.

But making the roof
earthquake proof is

another matter altogether.

If you put a heavy roof
on top of a stadium structure,

there can be a very
significant whiplash effect.

In Los Angeles, California,

the team building the SoFi
Stadium needs to find a way

to attach the roof so that,
in an earthquake,

it doesn’t shake one way
and the stadium another,

tearing it apart.

We decided to keep the roof
separate from the stadium bowl.

To do that,

they use a bit of engineering
magic called a blade column.

Tall, narrow and flat.

they slice through the space
like the edge of a blade.

Their shape is
what makes them strong.

If I hold up this card
like this, then it bends easily.

However, if I do this,
it doesn’t.

That’s because the wider
something is,

the more stiffness it has
and the more it resists bending

The blade column’s shape

allows them to solidly
hold up the roof,

but have just enough side
to side flex

to move safely
during an earthquake.

In August 2018,
they’re complete,

and the team turns its attentio
to one

of SoFi’s more
surprising features.

People always ask us,

"Why does this stadium have
a roof in Southern California?"

And my answer is:

anybody out there who’s been to
a sporting event during the day

no one really wants to sit in
the sunny side of the stadium.

To keep the heat out
while letting the light in,

They turn to a material
called ETFE.

Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene:

it’s a plastic
that’s 1% the weight of glass.

Grimshaw Architects built
the Eden Project out of it.

The plan is to use it to
cover the aluminum roof panels.

There’s approximately
900,000 square feet

of ETFE covering
the entire roof.

Those panels are
all 60 foot by 60 foot

that fit within what we call
the picture frame

up on top of the roof.

But getting the 300 panels
up there is far from easy.

Ideally, we would have loved
to have clad the panel

in ETFE before we flew it, but
here we’re close to the ocean.

In the afternoons, the wind
would generally pick up.

So that turns the panel kind
of into a kite.

It may be a very
modern material,

but putting it on is
distinctly old school.

We bundled the ETFE up,
we flew it on the panel,

and then we had to have
tradesmen

and women out over the roof,
unfolding,

tensioning the ETFE
panel in place.

In mid-2020, it’s just
one of the many jobs being

done on site.

It was the race to get
ready to open the building.

They’ve got just 20 months

to turn a massive shell into
the world’s most

advanced sports stadium.

You know, managing
over 4000 tradesmen

and women a day
on site at our peak.

It was such
an enormous challenge.

The teams are working
day and night

to get the stadium
finished before the Super Bowl,

but there’s one last obstacle
to overcome.

The infinity screen...
It’s 120 yards long,

visible from every single seat,
weighs over 2.2 million pounds.

That’s the equivalent
of two Boeing 747s.

It should give every
spectator a spectacular view.

When I first saw the
design for the infinity screen,

the first thing that came
to my mind:

how are we going to do it?

In early 2020,
they’re ready to try.

Over 1300 pieces
arrive from the factory in Utah

It’s all assembled
right on the stadium floor,

ready to be lifted into place.

We had 14 strand jacks attached
to the... the primary structure,

and it was a very,

very coordinated effort

to make sure all the strand
jacks are going up

at the same time,

so there is no deflection
between one end to the other.

Because it’s so huge,

we didn’t want any
of the LED modules to pop off.

The huge Oculus is
suspended on a system

of tension cables,

meaning no single point carries
the enormous weight.

It goes up without a hitch.

Four years in the making and si
months ahead of the Super Bowl,

SoFi opens for its first
public game in September 2021.

It looks great.

Every time I come in,

I make an effort
to see the playing field

because the Oculus is so awesome
and I have to remind myself,

"Hey, I can watch the game on
the playing field."

It’s a fitting new home
for the LA Rams,

who go on to win the first
Super Bowl held there.

There’s still an allure
every time you come into

this building of...

I can’t believe we’re fortunate
enough to get to play

in this stadium.

At $5.5 billion,

it’s the most expensive stadium
on the planet.

I’ve worked on a lot
of really cool projects,

but, this building,
the complexity of it,

the challenge of it,

this is definitely a career
highlight for me.

But it’s more than that.

By 2022, the Hollywood Park
complex has brought

in around $20 million US in tax
revenue and created thousands

of local jobs.

When I’ve asked the...

the people checking security
or the people in the gardens,

"How’s it going?"

They’ll say, "This is like
a dream come true."

I sense the city
of Inglewood feels blessed.

We take pride in contributing
to the future of the city,

you know, and the future
of this community,

and a give back
of the public space.

It really has become
a global destination.

Imagine that somewhere in
the middle of the Black Forest,

there was a skyscraper

that didn’t have
a single apartment,

hotel room or office,
but it did have 12 elevators,

all leading up
to absolutely nowhere.

It sounds like something
out of a fairy tale,

but once upon a time,
they actually built it.

The German town of Rottweil
is best known for its famous do

and its medieval
European architecture.

But in early 2013,

a company called TK Elevator
wants to base themselves here

and revolutionize the world
of elevators,

which until now has
relied on ropes.

Currently, if you want
to do a super tall building,

you typically have
to use a sky lobby.

So you go up maybe 100,
120 stories,

you exit, and then you
go into a set of elevators

that might take you up
the next 60 stories.

Above that,
the ropes get too heavy

for the elevator system to lift

But TK Elevator is developing
something to change all that:

The Multi, the world’s first
rope-free elevator

that uses powerful magnets.

With a multisystem,
you can enter an elevator

at the ground floor and reach,
uh, 200, 300 stories.

Magnets make it twice
as fast as regular elevators.

Think maglev train tech,
but vertical,

a train that goes up.

But unlike rope elevators,

which have been
around for hundreds of years,

This new technology will need
some serious testing

to make
sure wherever it’s installed,

the magnetic
elevator will work safely.

So to do that,

TK Elevator decides
what it needs is

an 807 foot tall
testing laboratory.

Fitted with 12 elevator shafts,

They must figure out a way

to simulate high winds
and earthquakes.

It will offer stunning views
from the top,

while it will need to be
protected from the elements

and something
that the locals will love.

To stay on budget means creatin
the 54 story structure

as quickly as possible.

When I saw the design,
I said, "Wow."

And then the challenges started.

Of course,
now we have to build it.

Before they can begin,
though,

there’s the small matter of
convincing the town of Rottweil

of their design.

First time when I heard
about this project,

I read it in a newspaper
and I thought,

actually, this was a joke
because a high rise building

in this area was, for me,
not imaginable.

Tall structures in Germany
are unusual, and especially

in the middle
of the countryside.

But with TK Elevator’s
research campus nearby,

they’re set on building
the testing tower there.

We have lots of engineers here
in the area,

so there were no better place
to build such a tower.

Now they just need
to get the locals to agree.

After several discussions,

the developer agreed
to implement

an observation decks.

We said, "Okay, we build
something for the tourists,"

and we build Germany’s highest
visitor platform on 232 meters.

And we have a very
big conference room here.

With the terms agreed to,
in 2014,

the team arrives on site
and starts digging.

They’re already
against the clock.

TK wants the tower
open by Autumn 2017.

That gives them a year to finish
all of the concrete work,

no wiggle room.

They need a way to create
it quickly, and turn

to a system called slip forming

You have your mold,

you pour in your concrete,
and then you let it sit.

Then you move your mold up and
you pour in the concrete again

and you repeat that process.

It’s one of the fastest
concreting methods out there.

It’s usually used

to create a building’s
concrete core,

but here they have something
more ambitious in mind.

Basically,
we built an entire building

with a slip forming technique.

We had a 30-meter-deep
excavation pit here, circular,

and at the very bottom there’s
a two-meter-thick base slab,

and the whole basement acts
as a fixed,

rigid connection of the tower
so it holds the whole structure.

By building the inner
and outer walls in one process,

the whole structure becomes
the core, strong and fast.

But once they start,
they can’t stop.

You put in the concrete
continuously 24/7.

So it’s very intensive process.

So if there’s any problem
arising,

we as an engineer have to find
just the solutions on the spot

because the slip
forming was moving.

That’s not the only challenge.

You also have to think
about temperature

to make sure it’s solid enough
before the mold moves on.

With temperatures ranging

from eight to 100° Fahrenheit
throughout the year,

the team must make
constant adjustments.

But it pays off.

With four months saved,

the mold finally reaches
its full height by July 2015.

Now they’re ready to address
their next problem:

towers move in the wind.

In high rise building,

wind is a dominant force
which works laterally,

so it comes horizontally and,
of course,

it tries to bend your building.

Normally, engineers do
everything they can

to stop that.

They add a huge weight
at the top,

called a mass damper, that sways
opposite to the tower

to cancel out the movement.

Here they have
something else in mind.

I remember once we attended
a meeting with the client,

and we discussed the possibility
of using such a damper

to set the power into vibrations
intentionally.

These elevators will be used

in buildings around the world,

so they have to be able to cope

with wildly different
situations.

So the plan is to be able to us
the damper to simulate wind

and even earthquakes
intentionally.

This is exactly the opposite

than a structural engineer
is usually doing.

And we said the client, "Okay,

let’s give us a chance
to think about that."

It’s August 2016,

and the engineers building

Germany’s TK Elevator test towe

want to see how their
prototype elevators cope

with seriously bad weather.

The plan: to put a motor
underneath a damper at the top

to make it swing, so the tower
vibrates intentionally.

It’s brilliant because it lets
you test how elevators perform

in real wind-like conditions.

But doing this is a risk.

We had to find any way
to make sure

that the vibrations are
not too much.

And finally we said, "Okay,

let’s do that in a way
that deflections is limited

to 250 millimeter around

and do this only several times
during the year.

This is the first building
where a mass damper was used

for both reducing
the wind-induced vibrations,

and then secondly,

bringing in vibrations
in a controlled manner

for testing elevator technology
under wind conditions.

But there’s another danger
from the wind.

Tall towers have
a tricky problem: Slow wind.

Sometimes it can build
up vibration

with something
called vortex shedding.

The rounded shape

of the tower makes this even
more likely to happen.

Regular swirling air patterns
can lead

to a side-to-side motion.

If that swaying happens
at the same rhythm

as the tower’s natural tendency
to move,

the motion gets
stronger and stronger.

Vortexes... I would describe
them as like little tornadoes

that peel off of a building
and can...

can cause the building to sway,

which ultimately
cause the structure to fail.

But the team finds a solution

that will also
transform the ugly duckling.

We didn’t feel
that a concrete shaft

by itself was
the appropriate expression

to stand in this beautiful
landscape.

We wanted to give
it a cladding, a facade.

For us, it was not only
a facade, which was nice to see

so it needed to improve
the structural behavior

of the tower significantly.

Stage one is to use
a tried and true idea.

The helix is a shape
that is often applied

to steel industrial chimneys,

and those serve to stabilize it
in the wind

by forcing these vortices either
downward or upward,

in... in which case
their energy is dissipated.

Then it’s stage two:

turning it into a thing of
beauty.

They settle
on an unusual fabric.

Teflon-coated
fiberglass has a benefit

that it really picks up
the light well,

so it’s like having a Greek
column standing

in the landscape
made out of marble.

We used it at the roof
of the Munich Airport Centre.

It’s very durable
and it’s fireproof.

Lasting at least 30 years,

the material keeps clean
by repelling oil and water.

What’s more, it can be
woven and welded into any shape

It’s lightweight,
self-cleaning, and beautiful,

creating that flowing shape
that architects want.

But this wonder material
alone won’t be enough to deal

with the next problem:
how to attach it?

The special thing
for installing this facade,

normally used for stadium
roofs and so on...

so for large
horizontal structure.

here, we had to install it
in a vertical way

up to 800 feet height,
and this was a real challenge.

A temporary platform is designe

to move down the tower
in sections.

It’s basically an elevator so
you can bring in the material.

You go down, bring the material,

you move up again, and install
it, and move down again.

Finally, in late 2017,

all 182,986 square feet

of beautiful panels
are in place.

In October 2017,

built in two and a half years a
a cost of $42 million US,

TK Elevator Tower is completed
on time,

ready for the first locals
to try out the viewing platform

It’s just put Rottweil
on the map

and it’s a great thing.

And coming into town
from the south,

it’s a spectacular sight.

The twisting form cuts a
striking figure

on the Rottweil skyline,

ready for the ingenious magnet
elevator test to begin.

This was a very special
project for such an area,

a high rise tower,
240 meters high,

close to the Black Forest.

It’s actually incredible.

When you see the final
building,

you’re forgetting all challenges
and difficulties and you say,

"Wow,
I was involved in this project"

and that makes you proud.

We had a big opening ceremony
and everybody was so proud,

and so was I.

♪ MTV ♪