Original subtitles

In this episode...

This is one of the most structurally impressive

engineering projects in the world.

...An airport on course to be

the largest on the planet...

This airport is the benchmark for airport construction.

This is the most important thing I have ever done.

And the groundbreaking innovations from the past...

This is a wonderful piece of architecture,

a wonderful piece of engineering.

It's really a marvel.

It's almost a cathedral to good engineering.

...That made the impossible possible.

Captions by vitac... www.vitac.com

captions paid for by discovery communications

Beijing, China.

One of the biggest cities in the world.

Demand for air travel here is soaring.

But the city's only airport has reached its breaking point.

New York-based architect Wendy Fok

has traveled to Beijing to see how the designers

and engineers here are attempting the impossible.

The current airport is at capacity.

It was originally intended

for 76 million passengers each year,

but it's operating well above that.

Last year alone,

100 million people passed through its doors.

Problems for flight reliability,

passenger experience, airline operations.

Beijing is in real need of a solution.

With passenger numbers predicted to rise even further,

the pressure on the airport is only going to get worse.

So engineers in China

have come up with a groundbreaking solution.

This is the brand-new Beijing dashing international airport.

It's on track to become the biggest airport in the world

once construction is complete.

And Wendy is getting the chance to see it

before it opens to the public.

Wow, I cannot believe how high the ceilings are.

All of those dips and swirls are super amazing.

You could barely even see how the structure is done.

It's really well-designed.

Barely see any columns here.

It's really amazing what the engineers have done here.

Occupying more than 17 square miles,

dashing airport's site is 2/3 the size of Manhattan.

The spectacular star-shaped terminal

covers 7 1/2 million square feet.

With a massive roof constructed from over 57,000 tons of steel

equivalent to 500 steam engines.

By the time the entire project is fully completed,

it will include a record-breaking six runways

and could see 100 million travelers every year.

But with the old airport at crisis point,

constructing this massive terminal is a race against time.

Wendy is finding out more

from deputy engineering manager Gao Aiping.

So Mr. Gao saying

they need to build this entire terminal

in three years and nine months.

That is an incredibly short amount of time

to build an airport.

Quickly laying the groundwork for this complex mega structure

was the first step.

So Gao and his team came up with an innovative solution

to speed up construction.

So the engineers constructed a temporary railroad system

to the core of the building to bring the materials

to get distributed around the building

to move materials really quickly.

16 wireless, remote-controlled trains

transport up to 28 tons of construction materials,

making the build four times faster.

How many people are making this project possible?

Oh, wow, that's actually pretty amazing.

At peak times, there's about 20,000 people

working on this project.

And you can actually see there's a huge amount of people

just working on different parts

of the construction right now.

With this ample workforce, engineers hope

this entire terminal can be completed in record time.

But first, there are still major obstacles to overcome.

How do you move millions of passengers

through the airport efficiently?

How do you build the terminal's colossal

intricately curved roof?

And most importantly,

how do you protect the airport from devastating earthquakes?

I think this is one of the most structurally impressive

engineering projects in the world.

Before this astonishing structure can be built,

there's a crucial challenge with the design

that needs to be solved.

Getting to your gate at the airport

sometimes is an impossible feat.

You sometimes get lost.

You don't see the signage,

and sometimes, you're just rushing in general.

For a huge airport like this

to get over 72 million people through its gates,

it's going to be super difficult.

Designing the airport to guide passengers through it

is something that engineer Wang Qiang has to solve.

This is an incredibly difficult problem for engineers.

So how do you move people around the airport efficiently?

This is midtown Manhattan.

It's the heart of New York City,

the largest city in the United States,

and by virtue of being a place where everyone wants to be,

one of the busiest cities.

Architect Cara Michell is investigating

how her 19th century predecessors

dealt with the sudden increase in demand

for public transportation.

So it was an incredible challenge

for the early architects of New York City

to figure out how to get people onto and off of the island,

especially during a time of unprecedented population growth,

so figuring out a solution

for how to transport both regular commuters

and long-distance travelers on a daily basis

was really difficult.

A massive new transportation hub would need

to coordinate the smooth movement of people through it

on a scale that had never been attempted before.

Architects Whitney Warren and Charles Reed

took on the challenge of designing a new train terminal.

Their solution?

This is grand central terminal.

The largest railway station on the planet.

750,000 people pass through daily.

Warren and Reed came up with ingenious ways

to ensure passengers didn't get in each other's way.

First of all, you enter the main concourse,

and you immediately see this information center.

But you can also see the location of the tracks.

You understand immediately where you need to go.

You know, that is really accentuated by the fact

that there are no interior columns breaking up this space.

It's really an open plan.

No columns meant

a passenger's view of signs was not obstructed.

But there was still a major problem.

Stations usually had stairs,

which slowed people down and created bottlenecks.

So these ramps really represent

one of the major design innovations

in grand central terminal.

But one of the things they had to work on

was determining what the right gradient would be,

and they actually built a number of models

and tested them out to determine what the right slope is

for people carrying luggage

and even people of variety levels of fitness and ability

to make sure that it was just subtle enough

for people to feel comfortable,

but also the right slope to effectively

and quickly move people in and out.

So let's see.

It looks like we're getting something between

5 1/2 and 6 degrees of slope, which seems about right.

Grand central terminal was the first station

to use ramps on a large scale,

much more efficient than using stairs or even escalators today.

Another one of the many

innovations in grand central terminal

is the fact that the tracks are actually on two levels.

Typically, rail tracks are laid out in a row,

but with 43 platforms at grand central,

that's a long way to walk.

By splitting the tracks over two floors,

it's less distance for passengers to walk.

And there's another benefit.

So you have long-distance passengers

who need a little bit more time to get on the train,

have more baggage, on the upper level,

and then you have short-trip commuters on the lower level.

And another innovation is looping tracks.

So they're actually dropping passengers off on one platform

and then looping around

to board departing passengers on another platform.

Every piece of design and architecture

in grand central terminal

is really focused on getting people

moving more efficiently and more quickly through the station.

Grand central terminal is a world first.

Despite being built in 1913, it still works perfectly today.

So what Warren and Reed accomplished here

over 100 years ago truly revolutionized

the design of transportation hubs,

and it's quite a wonder to think

that designers of transportation hubs all over the world

are still looking to this space to understand

how to effectively move people around.

I mean, it's really a marvel and a monument,

almost a cathedral to good engineering.

Now, in China,

engineers are building upon

Warren and Reed's groundbreaking designs

to create their cutting-edge 21st century airport.

In Beijing, work is underway

to create a brand-new airport that will keep up

with the city's rapidly booming population.

Beijing dashing airport is set to be the largest in the world,

so in order to reduce walking times for passengers,

engineers came up with an ingenious way

to compact its 79 departure gates.

To help people locate their gate quicker,

engineers used another strategy.

Just like in grand central, dashing airport is engineered

to keep different types of travelers separate

so they don't get in each other's way,

while ramps and travelators help keep people moving.

In preparation for the airport opening,

engineers are rigorously testing passenger flow

with the help of 51,000 volunteers.

So here we go. We're going to try to test this out.

And today, New York- based architect Wendy Fok

is getting the chance to put the design to the test.

We're actually walking towards the international gates.

If I were trying to get to a flight,

I would be super nervous right now.

It should take a maximum of eight minutes

to get to the furthest gate.

We're doing a good job right now.

See behind me this beautiful Chinese garden

that's still in construction.

And we're close to the end of the terminal.

So here we are at the end of the terminal.

We've made our flight.

Despite being such a huge airport,

took less than six minutes.

That's under what the engineers estimated.

That's pretty incredible.

Coordinating the movement

of up to 100 million people a year

is a massive achievement for the engineers

of one of the largest terminal buildings ever constructed.

Constructing a single terminal building

on such an unprecedented scale was a huge challenge

for engineers like Lei Susu...

...who has special access

to one of the project's biggest challenges...

...the enormous roof.

The airport's artistic roof is an extremely complex shape

with multiple flowing curves.

The problem was made even more difficult by the need

for an unobstructed space inside the airport.

A traditional concrete and girder roof would be too heavy,

so to solve this seemingly impossible challenge,

engineers will need inspiration from the pioneers of the past.

In China, air travel is booming.

To keep up with the increased demand,

engineers are building

the Beijing dashing international airport,

a cutting-edge transport hub on a scale never seen before.

Handling 880,000 flights a year, the terminal is constructed

on the world's biggest seamless slab of concrete,

which at nearly 2 million square feet

is more than seven times the size of Rome's Colosseum.

But installing a roof on a building of this size

is a major challenge.

We are in split,

very old, beautiful Mediterranean town.

We believe that we are the sportiest city in the world.

Architect and sports fan Dinko Peracic

lives in Croatia in Southern Europe.

In 1979, split was chosen to host the Mediterranean games,

and the pressure was on to build a world-class arena.

One of the biggest challenges was to make an athletic stadium

for 55,000 people in the audience,

and the design of the stadium

had to be something really, really special.

The games were held during the summertime,

so it would be definitely too hot for spectators.

So a roof had to be built to protect them,

and it was important that the roof

doesn't have supporting columns.

They would block the view, so it was a big, big challenge.

What engineers came up with is awe-inspiring.

Here we are.

Sports stadium in split.

Yeah, this is a wonderful piece of architecture,

a wonderful piece of engineering.

These massive steel roofs

are each over 700 feet long, covering a combined area

of more than 130,000 square feet.

When it was built,

this was the largest curved roof of this kind in the world.

These long span roofs wouldn't have been possible

without Alexander Graham bell.

Famous for inventing the telephone,

in 1902, he became interested in flight

and made huge wings of interconnected pyramids.

The technique became known as a space frame.

And Dinko has a unique opportunity

to take a closer look.

Yeah, here we are in the roof.

This is a space-frame construction.

This is a structure that normal people

can feel just from below.

You see that there are no columns supporting you.

There is just the air below us.

I have to hold my helmet that it doesn't fall down.

Here we have those triangular pyramids made out of

12,000 poles and more than 3,500 balls

creating this shape, the spatial structure.

Pyramids are very strong in all directions

because they spread forces evenly.

And these frames don't need much material to build them,

so they're also very light.

Space frames are made of straight poles,

but this roof has multiple curves.

To show how this is possible,

Dinko is building his own space frame.

And this is a very lightweight structure.

The space is mostly air.

There is just the minimal material.

The story becomes interesting

when we start to multiply these elements.

We can simply connect them together...

And get a chain of pyramids,

which is actually creating a special frame.

To make this curved roof,

engineers made some of the polls longer

and changed the angle of the connections.

By simply introducing longer poles,

you get a curved structure.

In these two roofs,

there are more than 1,000 different lengths of poles

and more than 1,500 different connections.

But to calculate each of those elements,

it's really complex.

For decades,

calculating the thousands of different elements

required for a multi-curved roof was thought impossible.

But advances in another field provided a breakthrough.

So this roof of this stadium

was the first one where computers were used

to calculate these specific elements.

Computer technology proved space frames

could form almost any shape long-span roof...

Essential for the engineers in China.

70 years after Alexander Graham bell

invented his space frames made of triangular pyramids,

it was used in a very creative way here in this stadium.

I'm really proud that I'm part of this culture

that was able to construct something like this.

Engineers in China have taken

the space-frame innovation and created a roof

13 times the size of that on the stadium in Croatia,

but assembling it will be a massive challenge.

Beijing dashing airport is on track

to be the largest airport in the world.

A structure of this size needs a massive roof,

and engineers are using space- frame innovation to build one.

The jaw-dropping structure

that makes this terminal roof possible

is completely hidden from passengers,

but Lei Susu has permission to see it up close.

With the help of computer design,

these poles and balls

will form the complicated multi-curved roof.

But with 75,000 individual parts,

assembling this super-sized roof could be a big challenge.

With the basic shape of the terminal in place,

the complicated space-frame roof can be built.

First, eight huge columns are made.

Then the gigantic roof is constructed in several segments.

Each section must be positioned precisely

with two-millimeter accuracy.

Any error could jeopardize

the stability of the whole structure.

The center section is lifted last,

completing this astonishing space frame.

Inside, cladding is added,

which dampens the noise in the terminal.

On the roof,

8,000 panes of glass make the skylights.

And 40,000 sections of sparkling aluminum cladding

finish this incredible structure.

Visiting architect Wendy Fok

is taking in this gravity-defying marvel.

For me, I think the roof structure

is just absolutely incredible.

You barely even see any of the columns,

especially standing in the center point.

You can really see everything from here.

The colossal roof needs

just eight columns to support it,

only possible because the space-frame engineering

allows such long and lightweight spans.

I think it's actually incredible that so many components

were brought together to make this gigantic roof system.

It required so many innovative systems

to really put together the different pieces of the roof

and then joining it with such precision.

This is truly one of the most remarkable roof structures

that I've ever seen.

But engineers are about to face

their greatest challenge yet, taking on

one of the most destructive forces on the planet.

Engineers in China

are attempting to achieve the impossible.

This is the Beijing dashing international airport,

a futuristic engineering marvel on track to become

the biggest airport on the planet.

The way that it's constructed is truly amazing.

I think it is really remarkable

that the engineers were able to make this happen.

Across the new airport site,

422.7 million gallons of concrete form the runways

and base of the massive seven-story terminal.

Its steel roof weighs more than 57,000 tons

and is held up by only eight columns.

Engineers must now take on

one of the most serious challenges of the project.

It's a life-or-death problem that falls on

engineer Wang Qiang and the design team to solve.

It's common for Beijing to experience earthquakes

of 2 or 3 on the Richter scale,

but they can be much more severe.

During a devastating earthquake,

how do you ensure this vast transport hub is protected

and remains operational?

To solve this critical problem,

engineers must look to history's ancient innovators.

Archeologist Gabriel Zuchtriegel is investigating

an ancient Greek settlement

which could help the engineers in China.

We are in Italy, south of Naples,

but the site we are looking at is actually a Greek site

because the Greeks founded colonies in Italy.

And one of them is Paestum,

which was a big city founded around 600 B.C.

But building in Italy is difficult.

It's one of the most seismically active regions

in Europe.

We had some major earthquakes in recent years,

and we saw that many modern buildings collapsed.

What we see on some classical sites like Paestum

is that there are still buildings standing

from 2,500 years ago,

and you ask yourself, "how is it possible

that these buildings have resisted for so much time?"

Ancient Greek civil engineers

built incredible temples,

many of which have survived to this day.

These are the stunning temples of Paestum.

We have three Greek temples still standing here,

and the biggest one, the Neptune temple,

it has six columns on the short side,

14 columns on the long side,

5th century B.C.E., still standing.

An extraordinary example of Greek engineering

because it resisted all the earthquakes.

Coming from a highly active earthquake zone themselves,

the ancient Greek engineers

had an ingenious way to tackle the problem.

While the foundations are very, very solid,

the columns are much more flexible,

and you see they are built of several pieces.

We call them drums.

They didn't use any mortar,

and so it's not rigid, solid block,

but it's pieces, one piece sitting on the other

so they can move and swing up to a certain degree.

And as soon as you have more than one element,

the behavior of the column changes.

Building columns from several drums without mortar

was crucial to these temples' ability to resist earthquakes.

It's a technique that could help the engineers

in dashing airport.

We have here our column, but it's one piece.

We glued it all together, so when we have an earthquake,

we see that it shakes, it behaves as one piece.

And you have a high concentration of energy here,

and then it eventually collapses.

The movement the earthquake

is totally transmitted to the top of the structure.

But the column drums in these temples

are not stuck together with mortar,

so Gabriel is repeating the experiment with separate blocks.

And look what happens if you don't have one rigid piece

but a column built of several pieces,

and now the earthquake comes.

And you see that I can put in more energy

and it still doesn't collapse,

and you can see how it opens and closes the single elements.

And basically, each element absorbs energy,

so much less arrives at the top

than what the earthquake gives in at the bottom.

So this is the original

ancient Greek damper and isolation system.

This isolation method provides astonishing

earthquake resistance for these monumental temples.

This structure has been standing

for 2 1/2 thousand years.

It's really a great achievement.

At the dashing airport in China,

engineers are using similar principles

to the early Greek temple builders

to protect this pioneering terminal from earthquakes.

But here, it's on a much bigger scale.

Beijing is located in the earthquake zone

in northern China,

so engineers must use unique building principles

to ensure that Beijing dashing airport

is protected in case of an earthquake.

The dampers are made from a stack

of 30 rubber and steel discs on a spindle.

Like the stones in the Greek columns,

they're not stuck together.

In an earthquake,

instead of holding the building firm,

they let it move horizontally back and forth.

This dissipates the energy,

isolating the terminal from the earthquake.

They also have another surprising benefit

for this unique transport hub.

Throughout the site, 1,152 base isolation dampers...

Were installed on top of the pillars.

The finished terminal can safely withstand earthquakes

up to 8 on the Richter scale...

...making it the largest anti- seismic building in the world.

Now close to completion,

New York-based architect Wendy Fok

has special access to the airport construction site.

Considering how massive this airport is,

I think it's incredible

that the engineers were able to find a way

to make this entire terminal earthquake-proof.

I think that's something that's truly remarkable

about this project.

This entire terminal has been built

in just three years and nine months,

a stunning achievement for an airport of this size.

This is so amazing.

This structure really just boggles your mind

on how many pieces

and how many people actually made this possible.

It's truly an engineering phenomenon.

This mega airport site is more than 17 square miles.

The terminal is the star attraction with seven floors

and a 57,000-ton multi-curved roof.

It will run 880,000 flights a year.

It's the world's first airport to have high-speed railway,

subway, and airport express trains all passing beneath it.

Now complete, the Beijing dashing international airport

is becoming a vital transport hub

for 100 million people every year.

The terminal combines breathtaking design

with cutting-edge engineering.

This is actually one of the most beautiful airports

that I have seen.

Projects like this push the boundaries

of what construction really could do.

Inspired by the pioneers of the past

and overcoming complex challenges,

engineers have pushed the boundaries

of architecture and construction.

When I come here to take flights with my family,

I feel very excited and very proud.

And they've succeeded

in making the impossible... Possible.

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