All language subtitles for How.Did.They.Build.That.S04E10.Floating.Parks.and.Upcycled.Towers.1080p.FUBO.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-FFG_track3_[eng]

How do you upcycle
a 50-year-old office building

to create a modern
skyscraper twice the size?

When I saw the concept
of the project, I thought,

it’s impossible to do this,
to be honest.

How do you create
a huge museum extension

on a foundation not
strong enough to hold it up?

A lot of people don’t realize
that everything has been touched

by someone’s hand
putting it there.

And how do you transform
an eight-lane freeway

into five acres
of floating public park?

You could not have

a more challenging physical
setting for construction.

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 them.

To ask,
How Did They Build That?

We’ve all tried upcycling--
a coat of paint on an old table,

a couple of new handles
on a wardrobe.

But how about upcycling

a near 50-year-old,
45-story skyscraper?

That’s never been done, right?

Yeah, it has.

It’s a world first
that took tremendous vision,

audacious creativity,
and a total fresh way

of thinking about sustainability

as well as
a sizable coat of paint

and quite a lot of new handles!

Around the world,
our towers aren’t aging so well

And the skyscrapers in Sydney,
Australia are no exception.

It’s 2014, and in a prime
location just behind the iconic

opera house and inside
of the Harbour Bridge,

there’s an office
building being used

by law and finance companies.

Constructed in 1976,
it was Sydney’s tallest tower.

But, built for a different era,

it no longer meets modern needs

Our tenants,
and particularly tenants

in a location like
this in Sydney,

are expecting a premium asset,

but it had a facade
that was performing poorly,

old building services
that needed upgrading.

So we were
faced with a challenge.

Vacancy rates in the existing
building were suffering,

and people were moving to...

to other new, shiny
buildings close by.

Normally, buildings past
their sell by date

are torn down and replaced.

But the environmental
impact is huge.

In the US alone, around 300,000
are demolished each year,

creating over 500 million tons
of landfill...

...while rebuilding creates
huge amounts of CO2.

The team decides
to try something revolutionary.

One of the opportunities
that we had was

to look at upcycling
what we had.

The vision is bold:

keep two thirds
of the original structure,

transform it
beyond all recognition,

and slash carbon emissions
in the process.

We actually saw the opportunity

to increase the size
of the building, maximize views,

really create an iconic
project for Sydney.

The developers turned

to Danish firm 3XN
to lead the redesign.

They’ve already dazzled
the international community

with the Olympic Committee’s ne
headquarters in Switzerland...

...and Berlin’s iconic cube.

But this project will
test their ingenuity.

There were so many
challenges here,

so we took them
up and tried to solve them

in a new way and build
our architecture around it.

The finished tower will
be double the size

and twisted to take advantage o
the amazing views over Sydney...

...creating an eco-friendly swa
out of an ugly duckling.

First, the team will have

to demolish a third
of the original tower

while keeping the rest
from falling down.

Then they need to make sure
that the old core is

going to be strong enough
for a building much bigger

than the one it
was designed for...

...before figuring out

how to stitch a new section
onto the old tower.

And somehow, they will need

to get 9000 people up
to the top floors,

even though
the original building

only has elevator
capacity for half that.

Finally,
they’ll need to stop everyone

from roasting
in the fierce Australian sun.

The challenges will be as tall

as the 675-foot Quay Quarter
Tower itself,

which might explain why no one
has upcycled

a skyscraper before.

When I saw the concept
of the project, I thought,

"It’s impossible to do this,"
to be honest.

The reason most
construction starts

from scratch is you know
exactly what you’re facing.

Here,
that’s anything but the case.

We were in uncharted territories
on... on many things.

Had the building
actually been built the way it

was shown in the original plans

Had the structure deteriorated
over the last 50 years?

could it even stand up to what
the team were going to do?

The whole process was going
to be challenging,

to say the least.

Despite all that,
work starts in February 2018.

Their first challenge:

pull off the world’s tallest
demolition project

by removing a huge section
of the tower.

We had to think

about how do we partially strip
the building out,

partially demolish about 30%
of the existing frame,

making sure that the building
didn’t fall over.

And doing that requires
the largest scaffold erection

in the southern hemisphere.

This isn’t just demolition.

They can’t just take
out the base

and let gravity do the rest.

Here they had to work slowly,

stripping off pieces floor
by floor from top to bottom,

while keeping the rest of the
structure perfectly balanced.

Demolition is just one of
the things about this build

that’s out of the ordinary.

In traditional projects,

you know, demolition would
happen well before you would

start the foundations
of a new tower.

But to the developer,

it didn’t stack up financially
for them to do it

from a time perspective.

Instead, they have to
tackle everything at once.

So you had demo,
you had rebuild,

and you had a stripping
of the facade all happening

at the same time.

The strategy should shave
over a year off the schedule

and save
100 million U.S. dollars,

but that comes at a cost.

There were some really stressful
and tense moments,

in particular
at the start of the project.

As work progresses,

in June 2019,

the team begins the job
of attaching 430,000 square fee

of new office space
onto the old building.

Now we’re adding a very

geometrically-shaped
cantilevered structure,

which is going to induce a lot
more torsional

and shear forces into that core

To you and me,

that means the new construction
will put the old building under

a lot of pressure.

First, they need to cut
a ten-story hole into the base

of the tower to reveal the core

This section will

be under the greatest stress
holding up the old

and new building.

Reaching the core means removing
vital structural support.

It’s like removing the bottom
blocks of a Jenga tower

and expecting it
to stay upright.

If they get it wrong, the whole
skyscraper could collapse.

But the team has no choice.

They need to be able

to test the core strength befor
attaching the new tower to it.

So the engineers design an
enormous temporary steel frame

to keep the building standing.

Over a thousand ton of steel was
brought in to enable this

to be built.

Now that the 50-year-old
core is exposed,

the team can test
whether it’s strong enough

to take all
the extra office space.

If it isn’t, the entire project
could be in jeopardy.

That task, you could say,

was fairly daunting in terms of,
um, what we would uncover.

They take 3000 samples
of the old concrete.

We found that locally,
in some areas,

there are some weak materials,
and they were problems for us.

It’s essential
that they strengthen the core.

And to do that,

the team turns to a material
more often found

in road bikes than skyscrapers.

Carbon fiber reinforced plastic
is made

by embedding high-strength
carbon fibers

in a plastic resin.

The fibers are incredibly
stiff and strong in tension,

like tiny ropes, and the resin
locks them in place,

creating a material that’s
stronger than steel

for its weight.

They strengthened sections
of the weakened core

by wrapping it
in carbon fiber resin,

but on its own,
that won’t be enough.

So the team designs additional
concrete support to add

to the original core.

But joining the new
and old isn’t easy.

As concrete dries, it shrinks.

If the two sections are joined
too early,

the shrinking will
pull on the original core,

risking cracks
and structural damage.

They can’t allow that to happen

The engineers turn to a simple,
but effective solution.

We call it pour strip.

You put a gap between the new
structure and old structure,

let the concrete shrink,
and after a few weeks,

you connect them together.

After the concrete has shrunk,

grout, a flexible cement
that fills any spaces

and dries slowly,

is added to bond the new
and old concrete together.

Now the team needs to build
the new section

of Quay Quarter Tower,

which will twist to take
advantage of the views.

But again, reusing the old
building creates problems.

One of the biggest challenges

that we were faced is how do you
connect the floors

in the new tower onto
the old tower?

The new extension will
settle, and each floor has

to line up to within an inch
of the old floor.

But that settlement is very
complicated to calculate.

As each new floor is
added to the new tower,

it compresses more and more,

but the new structure has to
connect

to the old one perfectly.

If it ends up even
a fraction off,

the new tower could twist
out of shape.

In Sydney, Australia,

the team behind
Quay Quarter Tower has

to build the new 675-foot-tall
skyscraper so it lines up

exactly with the old tower.

But as they construct
each new floor,

it compresses
the building underneath.

We had a computational model,

but we weren’t 100% sure if
that’s a good representation

of what’s happening on site
and if the building moves

as per our expectation.

To stay ahead of risks,

engineers rigged the whole tower
with hundreds

of sensors measuring stress,

pressure and movement

in real time so they could
continually adjust what

they were doing.

There was no room for error.

Over the next tense 21
months, the tower slowly rises,

floor by floor.

We had to run out
and monitor the system,

take the data, feed it back
into the design model.

Then, in March 2021,
the team finishes the top floor

This was two years
in the making.

We needed a floor that’s
meeting at the same level.

It’s a huge moment.

All of those things played out
such

that the difference between
the existing building

and the simulated performance
was only millimeters,

which was fantastic.

The next challenge is
making sure

that the environmental savings

from upcycling the old tower
aren’t undone

by the fierce Sydney sunshine.

Air conditioning is one
of the biggest guzzlers

of energy and office buildings.

In Sydney’s hot, humid climate,

that cooling load
can be massive.

And with rising temperatures,

the stakes are only going
to get higher.

The architects have
a clever solution.

We were creating these
horizontal sunshades

that ran up through the building
to passively shade the building.

Each of the 5000 exterior
panels has a three-foot sunshad

as part of the design.

We were able to reduce
the solar radiance on the glass

by more than 30%,

which in turn allowed us to...

require less cooling
inside the building

and therefore
using less energy, less carbon.

As Quay Quarter Tower
nears completion,

they face one last hurdle.

We were doubling
the floor plates.

So how did we look after
double the amount

of people
coming into the building?

They need it to get 9000
people up and down the tower.

If they were designing
from scratch,

they’d put in 31 elevators.

But the original core
only has 19 shafts .

Their solution is
remarkably simple.

We settled on two lifts being
on top

of one another
inside a single lift shaft.

So you have two points of entry

at the ground
and the upper ground.

The double decker
elevators link together,

rise through the building,
stopping at alternate floors.

And that essentially
moves twice the amount of peopl

in that same space,
so it’s highly efficient.

In April 2022, four years
after construction began,

the radically repurposed
Quay Quarter Tower is ready

for its first tenants.

We get to work in one of the
greenest buildings in the world,

and, yeah,
it’s really beautiful.

It’s striking when you
look up towards the skyline.

It’s angular.

It looks like a Rubik’s Cube
kind of twisted around.

It’s really added
to the Sydney skyline,

and I think it’s a building that
everyone should be really proud

of that’s been involved in it.

Behind its 21st century
good looks

and an additional 430,000 squar
feet of office space,

two thirds of this 49-story
skyscraper is recycled,

saving an estimated $100 millio
U.S. and 12,000 tons

of carbon emissions.

It’s a bold example

of how sustainability can
reshape the skyline

and the future.

This project has
taken upcycling to new levels.

We don’t have to demolish.
We don’t have to rebuild.

We can actually
use what’s existing

and create
something beautiful again.

For decades, cities have been
developing over parks

and green spaces to build
everything from skyscrapers

to roads and parking lots.

But when the city of Dallas
realized that they had a lot

of freeways and not
a lot of parks, they thought,

"Why not build a park
over a freeway?"

In fact, they suspended five
acres of tree-lined public park

in thin air 17 feet above
eight lanes of traffic.

So now, even when every light
in the city is on red,

there’s one place you can

be sure the focus is
always on green.

There are more than 26 million
cars in Texas today,

traveling along a vast network

of highways linking
the four corners

of America’s
second-biggest state.

In the boom of the 1950s
and ’60s,

America’s highway expansion
revolutionized the nation,

fueling prosperity and
connecting cities

like never before.

But for others,
it was a disaster.

In 1962,
when the city of Dallas looked

to improve traffic flow,

they built the eight-lane
Woodall Rodgers Freeway.

Its creation ripped apart
the Freedmen’s Town

neighborhood in Dallas.

Freedmen’s Town
community is a place where

African Americans post-slavery,
were able to build their lives.

It was a community that was
built away

from oppression
and discrimination.

They demolished homes,
churches, and businesses,

forcing people
to move out of the area.

Typically, those communities of
colors don’t have the resources

in order to fight back, to say,

"We do not want this freeway
coming through our community."

The new freeway damaged
the city in other ways, too.

Woodall Rodgers Freeway
was noisy and it was dirty

and people didn’t want
to cross it.

It’s 2004, and the city
of Dallas, Texas,

wants to reunite its downtown

and uptown communities
after a freeway was built

through the middle.

Downtown was literally
being choked off from uptown.

Uptown was thriving,

and it created all sorts
of economic disparities.

Local banker Jody Grant
remembers a bold idea

that no one had managed
to deliver.

I came upon the freeway
and the idea again resurfaced

in my mind, um, to cover it
and build a park on it.

He needs plans for it.

So he calls a meeting
with engineer Tom Shelton.

I went home
and I told my wife, "Kay,

"this guy is utterly crazy.

"He wants to build a floating
deck on top

of a major ten-lane freeway."

And I told Kay, "I don’t know
how to go back to tell Jody

’No, you can’t do it.’"

But the city thinks
it’s a great idea.

And after raising $110 million
U.S. in public

and private money,
Shelton has to find a way.

I challenged my team
and our structural team

to really see if we could make
the impossible

and turning it
into the possible.

This impossible concept
will create the world’s

largest suspended park.

First,
they’ll have to find a way

to install the entire five-acre
park over

the eight-lane freeway,

which doesn’t have many places
to put supports.

They’ll also need to create
planters deep enough

for 322 trees,

while letting vehicles pass
below and without being allowed

to raise the park to accommodat
them.

Then they’ll have to find an
ingenious way to stop the weigh

of the soil from collapsing
the park onto the freeway.

Finally, they’ll need to fill
the park with landscaping

and nearly 4000 plants to creat
a beautiful urban oasis,

reuniting the communities
of Dallas.

You could not have a more
challenging physical

setting for construction.

Their first problem is
figuring out how

to support a 200-foot-wide

by over 1000-foot-long park
sitting over a freeway.

Intuitively, as an engineer,

your immediate reaction is "No,
that’s not possible."

The engineering conundrum is

that the freeway doesn’t leave
much space for supports.

So the park deck needs
to be lightweight,

But with fewer supports,

the beams across the deck
need to be a lot stronger.

And so that naturally causes
those beams to be even deeper.

But they can’t go deeper,
higher, or heavier.

So the team turns
to an engineering marvel.

The box beams are boxes where
there’s voids in the interior

of the boxes,

and they provide
the structural integrity

and structural strength.

Box beams are a game changer
for spanning the freeway.

Their hollow design makes
them super lightweight,

while their box shape spreads
force across all four sides

to keep them strong.

In October 2010,

the first of the 316
prefabricated box beams are

delivered to the site.

Getting them in place
means closing the freeway.

But since it carries
180,000 cars a day,

the Department of Transportatio
will only

allow limited closures...

...just 20 shifts total
for only 32 hours at a time.

The pressure is on.

The beams were queued up.

Cranes were in place,

all the labor and the staff was
in place, and the horn blowed.

We started setting
that first beam.

Every move must be exact.

Everything had to be well
planned and well coordinated.

Everybody had
to know what their role was.

Each time, they can
only place 15 beams,

then work stops for days
or even weeks.

It’s a slow start
and stop process.

But finally, after a year,

the entire freeway
disappears beneath the beams.

We had a script in place.

Everybody went through
that script without deviation

and without exception,
and everything worked perfectly.

In August 2011, the team
is ready for their next hurdle,

turning the concrete beams into
an urban oasis

that city dwellers
will want to use.

In the 1970s,

the sociologist William White
conducted studies

into public spaces.

He showed that people will make
more use

of them when they
are easily accessible,

and blend into
the surrounding area.

This changes the way
public parks are designed.

We didn’t want
to elevate the park.

We wanted it to feel like it’s
just part of the fabric

of the city.

So the connectivity
between uptown and downtown,

you felt like you were
just walking through a park.

William White also found
that people are drawn

to the presence of trees.

They make spaces more inviting,
offering shade,

comfort, and a sense of shelter

We wanted to have about
60 to 70% canopy coverage,

which meant that we were
going to plant about 300 trees.

But that gives the
engineers a pretty big headache

These trees that he was
selecting had pretty significant

root balls to them,

which also then created this
pretty sizable, uh,

depth of soil.

The problem is that the
freeway has

to have a height clearance of a
least 16.5ft for tall vehicles,

and they are not allowed
to raise the park.

Everything started getting
squeezed,

and it naturally made the depth
of the soil so minimal

that the trees could not be
planted in that soil.

The team thinks inside the box.

So we had this idea where we
would create trenches

in the superstructure.

And that creates
another problem.

The design would not
work if the trenches were

completely filled with soil,

the weight would just
be too immense.

In Dallas, Texas,

the team building Klyde Warren
Park over eight lanes

of speeding traffic must
find a way to reduce the weight

of soil on the deck to make
sure it won’t collapse.

They came up with this
idea of this geofoam.

It was the first time that many
of us had worked

with that type of feature.

Geofoam is made
from expanded polystyrene,

kind of like a Styrofoam cup,
but way tougher.

It can handle serious pressure
without breaking a sweat.

It won’t absorb water,
and it’s insanely light,

weighing a fraction
of what soil does.

The geofoam is a bit
of a challenge, though,

in that you have to cut each
piece to fit tight

to whatever is...

it’s filling, so it can become
very labor intensive,

much like building
a jigsaw puzzle.

The geofoam is packed in
to leave deep pockets

for the trees, while creating
shallower areas of soil

for smaller plants.

It takes four months
to complete.

But finally, in December 2011,

they’re ready to create a park
on the concrete deck,

starting with the 18,500 cubic
yards of soil.

Once you saw the deck with
the soil in place

and you walk across it,

we knew that vision was going
to come to reality.

Now they can add all
the hard landscaping

and 4000 specially selected
native plants chosen

to fit the conditions.

On very cold days, there may be
cold coming from below,

sometimes it may get really
hot on the deck.

So we wanted to go with the most
durable plants that we knew of.

Finally, they bring
in 322 mature trees.

When we started to plant trees,

we started to realize
this is going to work.

So that’s when we knew
that we had hit a home run.

In October 2012, after
three years of construction,

the incredible five-acre
Klyde Warren Park is unveiled

to the public, the largest
suspended park in the world.

Klyde Warren Park has really
created a heart and soul

for the city of Dallas.

This park has been successful
beyond our wildest imagination.

I mean, we never thought
there’d be, you know,

1,300,000 people a year
in this park.

People just enjoy themselves,

and that’s a wonderful thing.

But somebody came up
with a good idea.

- It’s working, it’s working.
- It’s working.

An incredible feat
of engineering,

the eight-lane freeway is hidde
beneath 40,000 square feet

of lawn and 65,000 square feet
of plaza.

I believe
Klyde Warren Park is a step

in the right direction
for reconciliation

of communities that have
been destroyed by freeways.

I hope that individuals will see
that taking one step is better

than taking none at all.

Just look around.

You can see all the different
varieties

of people and cultures.

It’s really great. It really is.

And its success has been
felt way beyond the city limits

There are more than 70 of
these deck parks being modeled

after Klyde Warren Park
just around the U.S. right now,

because Klyde Warren Park is
a perfect example of how

to take advantage
of a recessed highway

and connect a city again.

When we think of San Francisco,
we think of fog,

the Golden Gate Bridge,

and Steve McQueen burning rubber
down its steep streets.

And now there’s the city’s
stunningly revamped

Museum of Modern Art.

At a whopping three times
its original size,

it’s safe to say that this
iconic museum stands out

in a big way.

From the moment it
opened for business in 1995,

San Francisco MoMA was a hit.

And not just for the art inside

This was superstar
architect Mario Boda’s first

project in the U.S.,

and he was determined
to create something iconic,

a geometrical masterpiece.

Composed of stacked boxes clad
in red brick with a giant black

and white stone oculus,

Boda’s vision was for a landmar
that would stand out

from the other
downtown buildings.

Its location in
the neglected South Market

neighborhood was chosen in hope
that the museum would

be a catalyst for urban renewal

And it worked.

But fast forward 20 years,

and the museum is already
overfilled with art and burstin

at the seams before it receives
a very generous loan.

The founders of the Gap stores,
Doris and Donald Fisher,

lent them one of the largest
private collections

in the world,
over 1000 pieces of modern art.

It’s an incredible gift,

but one that comes
with a rather unique problem.

Given the number of works,
their quality,

and our desire
to have them on view

on a near permanent basis,
that demanded more space.

This wasn’t just any extension.

It had to work next
to an iconic building,

but also be special
in its own right.

To pull it off, they
turned to architects Snohetta.

The brief was looking
for that kind of feeling

of good dance partners.

They complement each other.
They don’t overwhelm each other.

But this new dance partner
does need to wow the public.

Part of Snohetta’s charge was
to create spaces

for the improbable, the
impossible, the yet to become.

Snohetta’s radical design
will see part

of the original museum
demolished,

and ten incredible wave-covered
stories go up in its place.

To do that,

they have to use the foundation
that is already there.

But this was engineered
for a building half the size

and they need to reinforce it on
soil that’s far from ideal.

Even then, the foundation won’t
hold up the weight

of the new building unless
they’re very careful.

They need to build a skeleton
strong enough

that it will self-support,

allowing them to create huge
open spaces...

and create a rippling facade
that’s light enough

and won’t cause the building
to lean over.

Finally, somehow, they’re
going to turn the wall

of a neighboring parking garage
into a piece of living art.

It was a stunning design,

but presented some pretty
serious engineering challenges.

Not only that,
as part of the deal,

the museum needs to be
finished within three years.

We had to minimize that impact
on the people of the city

and the people that work there.

- In June 2013...
- Three... Two... One!

...work begins demolishing part

of the original museum where
the new extension will sit.

The problem is
that the foundations

on the demolished sections are
connected to the rest

of the museum,
and if they remove them,

it could cause the entire thing
to collapse.

But the foundation slab is
too small for the new extension

The solution would be
to sink new piles.

However, that’s too expensive.

The original engineers didn’t
ever envision the foundation

slab needing to support
something of this size,

so they can’t replace
the foundations,

but a traditional concrete

and steel extension
this big will be too heavy.

As if that isn’t enough,

the soil underneath
isn’t remotely up to the job.

The soil in this part of
San Francisco is...

it’s not very good.

Down deep is a layer of clay
material called old Bay clay.

It tends to squish
like a sponge,

and so controlling how the load
is distributed down

to that lower clay layer was
very,

very critical in our design.

Get it wrong,

and they could end up like the
neighboring

58-story Millennium Tower.

San Francisco’s Leaning Tower,

its foundations just weren’t up
to the job.

It sunk 16 inches
and leans over a whopping 26.

Determined not to make
the same mistakes,

the engineers take inspiration

from something rather
surprising...

an egg carton.

What we did is strengthen
that lower slab

by casting a series of
perpendicular walls

on top of it,
crisscrossing like an egg crate

and then cast another slab on
top of that.

The combination of the
slab and the walls act together

to very effectively transfer
all of the tower loads.

It’s a great engineering
solution

that saves $1 million U.S.

and saves three months
off the schedule.

It was pretty innovative and
difficult to do on a tight site.

With the ingenious
solution in place,

in April 2014,

the team turns its attention
to the building itself.

It has to be super strong
to cope with the open areas

of gallery, but also light.

They settle on structural steel

The beauty of structural steel
is when you have

these long spans, you can do
so relatively efficiently.

Concrete would have been much,
much heavier.

Even so, the design is so
complicated, it requires a lot

of steel to pull it off.

There are multiple
cantilevers and overhangs

that make the engineering

of the building
substantially more difficult.

We had some very,
very deep girders.

The weight of the
ten-story skeleton means

that the team needs to reduce
weight wherever else they can,

including the extraordinary
exterior.

So the facade has
an organic quality,

and that organic quality is
related to the maritime climate:

the fog in San Francisco,

the cliffs along the Pacific
Ocean that were an inspiration.

But what just looks like some
fanciful artistic thing has

a huge technical impact.

Now the team just needs
to decide how to build it.

The people they were talking
to was precast concrete guys.

Well, precast concrete is heavy.
I mean, super heavy.

Precast concrete
would weigh over 60 pounds

per square foot.

And you have to have a massive
frame to hold it in place.

It would be too
heavy for the foundations.

The team building
the new extension

of the San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art needs to make it

as light as possible,

because the old foundation
wasn’t engineered

with a building
this size in mind.

Part of the solution lies in th
material they choose

for the facade.

Fiber Reinforced polymer,
or FRP, is a mix of fibers--

in this case glass fibers--
and resin.

Not only can it be molded
into any shape that you want,

it’s very light and very tough.

The fibers are super
efficient, very strong.

So we end up with strengths
that are higher

than steel per pound.

Although used in marine,

automotive,
and aerospace industries,

as well as construction,

covering the 200-foot exterior
will be a risk.

It had simply not been
used at this scale in the past.

And the challenges
don’t end there.

There was 700 panels on this
building, and every one

of them was different.

So essentially it was 700 molds
for 700 parts.

Each panel is modeled

on 3D software before individua
molds are cut

by a computer-controlled
machine.

It’s a slow process.

Our concern was the ability
to manufacture

and fabricate
this many unique panels

in the schedule that we had.

The computer worked
all night long

and made four molds every night.

And then we lay the resin

and the glass fiber
into the mold by hand.

The guys basically take these
rolls of wet glass fiber

and set it into mold and roll it
down onto the mold’s surface

with hand rollers.

It’s a lot of craftsmanship
in this stuff.

Once each panel is complete,

they apply a decorative finish
and add the aluminum frame

that will be used to attach it
to the building.

Once on site, the pressure
is on to attach the 700 panels,

each unique and measuring
up to 5 and a half feet wide

by 26 feet tall.

If there is a strong wind,

panels will catch like a sail,

which could
be incredibly dangerous

for the workers 200 feet
in the air.

They put their life
on the line every day.

Even with all the safety
measures you can put in place,

it’s... something might happen.

After 28 weeks,
the 700th panel is in place,

completing the incredible exterior.

A lot of people don’t realize
that everything has been touched

by someone’s hand
putting it there.

The building is
nearing completion,

but there’s still
one challenge left:

creating an oasis

on the third floor where the
view looks out onto

the parking garage.

We knew that big parking wall
would be the primary facade

of our space,
and who wanted that?

The solution?

Creating one of America’s
largest vertical gardens,

and in one of the narrowest
spaces possible.

In such a space
that’s so compact,

building a living wall would
be a challenge.

The position of almost
20,000 plants is carefully

mapped out
before they’re planted.

The wall itself is made
from recycled plastic bottles,

which have been
turned into felts.

It’s super water efficient

and provides a growing medium
for them.

It’s both sustainable
and very, very cool.

The vertical garden’s
green credentials

don’t stop there.

The 4399 square feet of plantin
will provide much

of its own water.

We collect the dew in the night

The fog comes in and the leaves
get a lot of water on them.

And then in the day,
we have a grill

that catches all the water
that drips off the plants,

and then it’s redistributed
back into the system.

Along with stormwater
and water collected

from the air conditioning
system,

This will provide 60 percent
of what the garden will need.

On Saturday, May 14th, 2016,

the San Francisco Museum
of Modern Art reopens.

Three years in the making,
it’s right on schedule.

The cutting-edge facade,

modeled by computers and
constructed lovingly by hand,

complements the original
building perfectly.

SFMoMA is pretty close to
the top in terms of challenges,

but also enjoyable projects.

The galleries are now
three times the size.

Being able to see
the finished project

with the art inside,

and the reception that the
building was given by the city

of San Francisco, it was very,
very satisfying.

Fantastic pieces
of architecture,

but then the art
inside is fabulous,

so it’s a great stop on anyone’s
visit to San Francisco.

Our visitors
and members love the beauty

of the architecture
of the building.

They love the airiness
that the building provides them.

A... really a sense of respite
from the world outside.

While bringing the outside in,

the huge vertical garden,

with 37 varieties

of local plants, has transforme
the neighboring

parking garage wall.

We turned that wall

that everyone hated into this
thing now that people love.

San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art is proof

that great architecture

and imaginative engineering can
transform people’s lives.

Buildings need to grow
and they need to change.

So I’m happy with what we did.

I feel we respected the building
in a very clear way.

♪ MTV ♪