Original subtitles

Get it up.

Narrator: In chicago...

[ speaking spanish ]

Narrator: ...A team of elite engineers

Is embarking on an epic endeavor.

Man: All right! We're coming down!

They're building a super tall skyscraper,

One of the most luxurious residential towers in the world.

It's going to be just an architectural icon.

This one is special.

Narrator: The team must battle fierce arctic-like winds...

Thompson: If you told someone what goes on up there,

You wouldn't believe it.

Good there, james.

Narrator: ...Extreme vertigo...

Hold on, rodrigo.

The higher we are, the more of an adventure it is.

Narrator: ...And an uncompromising

Deadline...

Should've been done yesterday.

Where's my hammer? Who stole my hammer?

There is no time to come back and fix anything.

Narrator: ...To add this colossal new centerpiece

To the world-famous chicago skyline.

This skyscraper ranks in a league of ambitious

New engineering wonders

That are bigger, faster, taller, and more advanced

Than anything ever constructed before.

This is the inside story of the extraordinary challenge

Of building these giants.

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by discovery communications

♪

Chicago.

150 years ago, this city gave birth to the skyscraper.

Today, nearly 3 million people live here.

Demand for living spaces

In the busy city center exceed supply.

Chicago developer kris schwengel

Is devising an innovative solution.

Since I was a boy, I wanted to build big,

Tall buildings, high-rises, skyscrapers.

It was the vision from the beginning to create

Not just a series of buildings

But to really create a neighborhood.

Narrator: This family-run firm plans to build their most

Ambitious skyscraper to date in downtown chicago.

Schwengel: It's the biggest. It's the tallest.

It really is kind of the apex

Of everything that we've been trying to do out here.

Narrator: Their vision is to construct

The 1,200-foot-tall vista tower.

Three giant towers make up

This stunning cloud-piercing skyscraper.

One of chicago's busiest roads

Passes beneath the central tower.

Further up, 15,000 custom-tinted windows form its curved sides.

A shimmering facade that mirrors the lake.

A five-star hotel occupies the base,

While 393 luxury apartments make up the higher levels.

The tallest tower soars nearly 1,200 feet above the lake below.

These penthouse levels give unrivaled 360-degree views

Of the stunning city skyline.

♪

Building this soaring triple-tower skyscraper

Won't be easy.

On the vista's north side is the river

And chicago's famous multilevel wacker drive.

They plan to build their tower right over this street.

We have a public street going right through the project.

Narrator: The lower level of wacker drive

Will make a right turn and pass directly underneath the vista,

Creating an unprecedented construction challenge.

The roadway has basically a 70-story building above it.

Narrator: And as the team builds higher,

They'll also have to brave the windy city's

Notoriously wild weather.

The weather we can't control. [ chuckles ]

Narrator: This is the plan.

Crews will begin by sinking 124 concrete support pillars

Called caissons 110 feet into the ground.

Hundreds of trucks will pour 100,000 cubic feet of concrete

On top to create two giant foundation pads.

The team constructs central cores for the two outer towers

And builds a thick concrete wall to join them together.

This giant super core makes all three towers stronger.

Workers make each new floor a different size

To create the tower's wavy profile.

Crews need to complete a floor every three days

To stay on track.

Finishing crews will then wrap the building

In 700,000 square feet of glass

To create a stunning addition to chicago's skyline.

Work begins in August 2016.

We have a wide site that sits right on the river in chicago.

Narrator: Although on paper, this prime riverfront

Real estate looks like a fantastic spot to build on,

In reality, it's anything but.

Schwengel: We're actually on what used to be lake michigan.

This is completely reclaimed land from the chicago fire.

The fire happened in the city, and they took all the debris

And just pushed it into the lake.

Narrator: In 1871, the great fire

Completely destroyed chicago.

Following the disaster,

The chicagoans banned wooden buildings

And cleared the burned remnants of the old city into the lake

To make way for the world's first skyscrapers.

High rises like the famous home insurance building

Rose up, built from the new materials of steel

And reinforced concrete.

♪

Today, kris' team must build on top of the debris

From the chicago fire.

They need to sink the foundation caissons 110 feet below ground

Just to reach a solid base.

Roughly a 12-story building

That we go down to found the building on bedrock.

Narrator: As the building rises up from its gargantuan

Foundations, the team faces their next big challenge

Constructing this triple-tower skyscraper.

The 30,000-ton central tower will need to float 50 feet

Above the busy wacker drive turnoff.

This requires some complicated engineering.

Like most skyscrapers, the two side towers

Rely on a solid concrete core for their strength,

Huge central pillars that rise from the foundations

And support the building's extraordinary weight,

But the middle tower is different.

Because it sits above a road,

It can't have a central core running to foundations below.

Instead, a thick concrete wall which begins above the road

Runs the width of the building from east to west.

This binds the middle tower to the cores on either side

And channels its weight to the other towers' foundations

Through a solid central spine.

This creates one unified megastructure,

Bridging the roadway beneath.

Schwengel: We have a wall here anyway.

We're just making the wall a little bit thicker

And tying the two cores together.

Narrator: The tower's unusual core design

Creates a huge bonus for its residents.

We have the added benefit of having more open planning

For the residents of the building,

Giving bigger floors, bigger units, more usable space.

Seven, four, 90.

Narrator: The vista's concrete skeleton will weigh over

100,000 tons.

Head of concrete kevin morley

Is in charge of every wall and floor.

[ indistinct chatter ]

His crews are on a punishing schedule

Of completing one entire floor level every three days,

A difficult target given chicago's

Notoriously temperamental weather.

Morley: The level of difficulty is pretty extreme

With the weather.

It's very unpredictable.

I eat, sleep and look at weather 24/7, so that's our life.

It basically drives our schedule.

Narrator: Chicago is exposed by lake michigan to the east

And the great plains to the west,

Creating some dangerous swings in the weather.

-I got the hull there. -It could be calm all day,

And we get a storm blow through that could have

80-, 90-mile-an-hour winds.

It could change in five minutes.

You don't know.

♪

Narrator: In chicago, workers building the super tall

Vista tower need to make quick progress

Before the winter weather hits.

You got to be prepared for, you know, whatever type

Of weather comes in.

Narrator: But the vista's complex shape isn't helping.

Unlike the flat-sided towers of the last century,

This groundbreaking design curves inwards

And outwards as it rises.

This creates a problem of where to place

The columns that support each floor.

Schwengel: In a traditional building,

These columns would go straight up and down.

Now, as you can imagine, the building gets

5 or 6 feet wider here.

This column would be in the middle of the room.

We didn't want that.

Narrator: If the buyers are paying millions,

They expect unobstructed views and no awkward columns

In the middle of their luxury living spaces.

The skyscraper's engineers devise an innovative solution.

♪

20 concrete columns support each floor of the vista tower.

They transfer the massive weight of the building downwards,

But the building's wavy profile

Creates a construction challenge.

If they stack the outer columns directly on top of one another,

They would pass through the middle of some of

The most desirable apartments, taking up valuable floor space.

To overcome this, they plan to line up the outer columns

With the edge of each floor.

Every floor, they shift by 5 inches,

Walking out over 5 feet, then shifting inwards again,

Following the building's distinctive curved profile.

Morley: It's not part of our nature to building stuff

Leaning, build it at an angle, build it out-of-plumb,

But in this case, out-of-plumb was the way to go.

Narrator: Head of concrete kevin morley is in charge

Of the team building these so-called walking columns.

They start by assembling huge panels into a mold,

Being careful to offset it from the column below.

Man: Okay!

Schaack: Five inches was sort of the maximum we could step out

To make sure that the load

Transferred correctly through the building.

Oh, I got a 5/8.

Narrator: Once each column is poured, there's no going back.

Hey!

So every measurement has to be perfect.

Okay!

If two columns don't overlap enough,

It could bring the whole floor down.

Morley: Well, your typical buildings that, you know,

Go vertically straight up are looking pretty simple

After you go through something like this.

Narrator: Once the 20th and final mold is filled,

Another floor is done.

It takes 16 months for kevin's crew

To reach the top floor of the skyscraper's first

And lowest tower.

The construction crews make rapid progress.

Let's take it back in, okay?

But with just over a year to go

Until the first residents move in,

One of the worst winters on record strikes chicago.

A freak weather system plunges the city into a deep freeze.

In the past two days, we were getting, you know,

20 below zero.

Up at the top, we're at minus 10 degrees from that,

So it's negative 30 up top, and chills are negative 60.

[ man shouting indistinctly ]

Narrator: Vista's hardened crew is used to the cold.

Coming back in!

But this is out of the ordinary.

Thompson: This is what we're dealing with right now.

The wind is driving the snow and ice at 45 degrees.

These are our edge protections, our netting.

But actually, there at the bottom,

You'll see me kick it here now.

That's probably an inch solid of ice.

Morley: I've never experienced this extreme-cold temperatures.

The guys get out of the man hoist,

And their eyeballs start freezing up,

And the guys with, you know, full beards right now,

They have icicles hanging off their beards.

Narrator: The team still has 20 floors of the skyscraper's

Tallest tower to construct.

Man: Move in!

But with the crew's safety at stake,

Kevin is forced to shut the site down.

[ man shouting indistinctly ]

It's beyond the beyond, pretty brutal.

♪

♪

Narrator: As the vista tower soars farther into the sky...

...A record-breaking winter storm hits chicago.

Severe ice halts construction for five days.

[ indistinct chatter ]

Eventually, the spring sunshine breaks through.

[ indistinct chatter ]

And even though the top of the tower

Is still bitterly cold,

This tough crew can roll with the punches.

Man: Number one!

As the tower rises, the team now faces a new challenge --

The wind.

Morley: We're seeing a substantial increase in winds,

And as we get higher, we're expecting those winds

To keep increasing.

Narrator: At over 1,000 feet in the air,

The winds hitting the finished tower will be so strong,

They will cause this slender skyscraper to sway.

Building moves. All buildings move.

It's important that they move.

Narrator: Engineers design all high-rise buildings

To have some sideways movement to cope with wind forces.

But too much movement could cause problems for residents.

Thompson: The building is going to sway back and forth

At its natural frequency.

You could potentially feel a sense of motion sickness

Because of the acceleration of the building.

Morley: Some of these older buildings, older designs

From years ago, you could actually feel it within.

You could see the water in the toilets moving.

Narrator: To counter the tower's motion, the vista's design team

Has turned the idea of sloshing water

Into an ingenious solution.

At the top of the highest tower,

Engineers will build giant concrete boxes

Filled with water called slosh tanks,

Six in total.

When high winds push the building one way,

The water in the tanks starts moving in the same direction

But more slowly.

This delay in the water's motion means its massive weight

Ends up traveling in the opposite direction to the tower.

The construction crew will also install giant steel paddles

Inside the tanks, suspended inches from the bottom.

The water pushes against these paddles,

Exerting a stabilizing force on the tower,

Evening out the wobble caused by the wind

And keeping the building still.

♪

Kevin and his team get to work

Shaping the enormous concrete tanks.

Morley: Tanks are, you know, 60 foot tall,

And they're essentially concrete walls

On the very top of the building.

Man: All right!

Narrator: They use giant 16x25-foot wooden panels

To build the mold for the wall of each tank.

Morley: So now you got extra walls that you're doing

At the very top of the building,

And it's something that you do not

Want to be dealing with up at those elevations,

Which is your deadliest winds

And your deadliest weather conditions.

Narrator: Moving the giant slosh-tank panels is

A dangerous job for crane operator mike femali.

It's very challenging.

You don't want to wreck the crane.

You don't want to wreck the form work.

You don't want to hurt anybody.

You guys ready?

All right. Coming up.

If they get caught with the wind,

They're just like giant sails up on the very top of the building,

And once they take off, you got problems.

Narrator: The only solution is to use the tower itself

To shield the slosh-tank panels from the wind.

You use whatever, you know, building you have poured

As a protection from the wind.

The operator has got to sneak them in behind the walls

And keep them down below the windstream

So those panels do not get jeopardized by the wind.

♪

Narrator: But the weather throws them a curve ball -- dense fog.

The tower suddenly disappears below mike,

And he's flying blind.

Femali: This tower is full of ice.

It's foggy, maybe 20-foot visibility,

And we can't see the ground.

We can't see what we're doing.

We can't see anything, so we have to depend on their signals.

Narrator: The work is dangerous,

And progress is agonizingly slow.

Femali: There's no room for error. There really isn't.

You have to trust the guys that you're working with.

♪

Narrator: The team battles through the worst

Of the weather, and panel by panel...

Man: Just tap it down.

...Cavernous slosh tank begins to take shape.

Down, stop.

The crane lowers in the giant steel paddles.

We're coming down!

And workers suspend them

Precisely 3 inches above the tank's floor.

Coming down another 3 inches, mike.

Landed!

They pour the lid, and another slosh tank is complete.

But there's no rest for the weary.

The concrete crew pushes on to build the three remaining

Giant tanks, while 500 feet below,

The window crew faces a daunting challenge of its own --

Clinging to the outside of the tower.

I tell everybody, "it's the fear that keeps you alive."

♪

♪

Narrator: In chicago, the vista tower is nearly

At full height, but it's still missing

Half its signature feature -- its glass.

The vision had always been to have this gradation

In the building that reflected the colors

That are in lake michigan.

The water goes from green to gray to blue to aqua.

It's really amazing and beautiful.

Narrator: The designers are blending six colors of glass

From dark to light to accentuate the curved shape

Of the building.

♪

With these six colors of glass, it's going to be just

An architectural icon.

You guys going to have another record day today?

Narrator: Shane jenkins heads up

The skyscraper's window-installation crew

Tasked with placing 15,000 glass panels.

Jenkins: Typical unit is installed from the inside.

The window is set on its sill, and it's tipped up into place.

Narrator: The glass needs to wrap around the entire building.

All good?

But at three places along the perimeter,

The vista has solid walls that block the crew's path.

Where you have a concrete wall, you obviously can't set

The window from the inside and tip it up.

Everything has got to be set from the outside.

Narrator: Shane and the window crew

Have come up with an ingenious solution.

First, engineers attach strong steel tracks

To the base of the tower's outer wall.

Next, they attach a giant four-story scaffold

To these tracks.

This allows workers to swing the specially designed

Glass panes out of the building and bolt them to the wall.

Once they finish a row, hydraulics push the whole

Scaffold up the track, elevating crews to the next floor.

When they run out of track above, engineers bolt

The scaffold to the wall itself

And detach the track and slide it further up the wall.

This extends the pathway for the scaffold to climb

Until it reaches the top, 800 feet above the city below.

Galvan: All right, you got a little tension on there now?

Narrator: The daredevil team working on the scaffold

Is led by rolando galvan jr.

Galvan: First, I was wary about it, like, "what am I doing

Standing on this thing? How's it hold on?"

Kind of weird, but we accepted it,

And we just kept rolling with it.

You know, we got a job to do, you know?

Coming up.

Narrator: 42 floors up, the crew climbs outside

And begins swinging the panels off the building's edge.

Galvan: Bring it out.

Narrator: Each half-ton panel must spend as little time

As possible hanging from the scaffold's narrow chains.

Man: Let me get a temp on here.

Speed is essential.

All right. That's what we want. That's cool.

All four crew members on the scaffold work in sync

To set and seal the windows as fast as possible.

We're good there, james.

[ man shouting indistinctly ]

Yes, sir.

Galvan: So it's like a train.

Like, everybody is working in the flow,

So nobody's going to be missing out on the action.

If you're not busy, there's no reason to have you.

[ laughs ]

Narrator: Halfway along the outside wall,

They hit a problem.

-Yep, he... -A little high.

Yeah, sitting high over here, that's the whole thing.

This window panel doesn't line up with the others.

Crank it down.

Everything is designed to fit perfectly,

But sometimes extra muscle is needed, too.

We haven't checked it yet.

Man #2: We're down!

There you go.

Okay, coming down.

The crew maneuvers one panel after another...

Easy now.

...Until they cover the concrete wall.

I'm right where I need to be.

But the real test is when they move inside

To squeeze in the final few panels.

Keep an eye on it.

We put the last panels on the floor

To close off the southeast corner of the building.

Narrator: The window units are millimeter-accurate.

Got it.

If this final panel doesn't fit, they know they've messed up.

Galvan: That's what keeps them together,

Is nice and tight-sealed vessels, and, like I said,

No air or water will get through.

If they're not, something's wrong.

Narrator: It's a tight fit.

But eventually it's in.

That's all, folks.

So those windows look good down there?

Yeah. Everything is cool

Everything is good, lining up.

All right. Sounds good then.

We'll be jumping up to the next floor.

Narrator: This floor is finished,

But above, the penthouse levels are still being designed.

There is no time to come back and fix anything.

♪

♪

Narrator: In chicago, a team is building one of the most

Luxurious residential towers in the world.

In the vista tower's extravagant sales suite,

Leila zammatta helps millionaire buyers

Build one-of-a-kind living spaces

By letting them alter the layout of the penthouses.

Basically, they can put the kitchens wherever

They wanted, the bathrooms, their master bedroom,

Or their living rooms.

They really had a lot of choices.

Narrator: But changing floor plans while the tower

Is being built presents the design team

With a huge challenge.

Zammatta: It's definitely adding another element of work

Because you have to work with all different,

You know, contractors to make everything come together.

♪

Narrator: The man turning these dream apartments into reality

Is victor cossyleon.

Cossyleon: Right now, we're in the corner unit.

We got the lake view out front.

It's one of the biggest apartments there is.

Narrator: Victor's team of carpenters has to build

Every interior wall and fitting

Of the vista's luxury apartments.

We're the ones that infill everything on the inside.

Narrator: Victor's team is 150-strong,

But at the leading edge is just one man -- danny.

We have to go back and forth, back and forth, like,

To make the changes.

Narrator: With a line and chalk,

Danny alone has the task of marking out

Every single wall in the entire skyscraper.

So he'll get a notification on his phone if something changes.

Narrator: Floor-plan changes from buyers

Are e-mailed through all the time.

Danny has to keep a close eye on his tablet,

And victor keeps a close eye on danny.

Are we on the latest and greatest?

Yeah.

Right.

Everything that he snaps out, there's a group of four guys

Behind him just putting the bottom plate runner,

And behind those guys, we got the guys stuffing in the studs.

Narrator: One slip up by danny could have

Enormous consequences.

Cossyleon: These are going to be multimillion-dollar units.

Something as simple as a wall being off by an inch,

You're actually costing the homeowner,

You know, hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So this change, make sure you let the foreman know

So that he can adjust the numbers

So we can send it back to the architect.

There is no time to come back and fix anything.

Narrator: Danny has to work fast and get it right the first time

Because there's an army of workers in hot pursuit.

We have up to 50 to 60 framers on one floor.

Once it gets going, it's eight hours of, you know,

Just go, go, go.

Narrator: Victor's team powers through another penthouse

And moves on to the next one,

But they can only work on watertight floors

With windows already in place.

This puts pressure on window superintendent

Shane jenkins and his team.

They getting down on those 47 stages yet?

That's what we need to start setting.

Every trade has got their own schedule

That they have to stick to,

So we're the first, you know, step in that process.

We have all the other trades that are coming up right behind

That are waiting.

Narrator: The crew setting the windows from the inside

Are up to the 84th floor.

To stay ahead of the carpentry team,

Shane has no option but to split this window team

Into separate units.

We have crews that set just the sills,

Which is the bottom framing of the windows,

And then we have separate crews that come in

And install the heads.

Then the windows are set and installed

In between the heads and the sills.

Narrator: Each crew sticks to one role

And becomes expert at it.

Jenkins: So if you were to have one crew do it all,

It would take forever, so it's got to be a fluid motion

Of everybody moving up the building.

Narrator: The tower's windowsill installation crews lead the way,

Battling their instincts in order to lay track

For the windows inches from a 1,000-foot drop.

Jenkins: The typical thought is that guys up here working

This high, looking over the edge are not afraid of heights.

But they are. They're terrified of heights.

You're constantly making sure you're tied off,

Constantly making sure that whatever tools you have

Are also tied off.

It's the fear that keeps you alive.

Man: Just locking it in.

Narrator: Once they lay down the sills,

Workers use a laser to level them off.

It doesn't look bad right now.

Millimeters count.

They need to leave a perfectly sized gap for the windows.

So there's a tolerance built in to where that window can move

Up and down inside the head and the sill.

Narrator: A second crew installs the window header above.

This team needs to work in perfect tandem

To make sure the window frame is spot on.

He's my eyes. I'm his eyes.

♪

Narrator: Another floor of window framing is complete.

Once the windows are in place,

Shane's next step is to prove they're watertight.

Jenkins: We have to create the facade that gets

Everybody watertight.

If we can't provide that,

Then the building is at a screeching halt.

♪

Narrator: In chicago, workers building the colossal

Vista tower are on the final stretch.

The windows are rising quickly,

But it's all for nothing if they're not watertight.

Coming out.

An inspection team is putting this tricky

Balcony section to the test.

They rig up high-pressure hoses to pound the balcony windows

With a simulated rainstorm.

So obviously if no water penetrates the panel,

It's a passed test.

Narrator: This super tall skyscraper will need to pass

A tougher test than most high-rises.

With the size of this project,

We're testing the wall a little bit more.

Narrator: The inspectors enclose the windows with

Airtight sheeting and use an air pump

To try to suck water in from the outside.

This technique mimics the onslaught

Of a chicago storm.

Man: With the vacuum pressure, we're basically simulating

77.5 miles per hour for a sustained 15 minutes.

That's a pretty significant storm.

Narrator: The inspection team hunts for any signs of moisture

On the inside of the balcony windows.

Man: We leave nothing to chance.

We build the building as if we're building our own house.

My house, I don't want it to leak.

I don't want the owners' building to leak either.

Narrator: The clock counts down.

♪

And with no signs of moisture,

They switch off the pump.

No water observed which is a pass, so great news.

Good job. No problem.

Narrator: The windows have passed their test,

And it's now a race to the finish line.

The concrete team needs to cast the final floor

Above the slosh tanks at the top of the building.

This process is called topping out.

♪

Head of concrete kevin morley is under pressure.

He has just 10 days to top out and finish the vista tower.

The summit is right there on top of that rebar,

So the idea is to get to there, top out, and be done.

That's the end of our job.

Narrator: Workers rapidly finish the last levels.

Now they have to pour one more slab

At the very top of the tower.

This will be the last time I use this.

♪

Narrator: But on the morning they're set to top out,

The wind returns.

Morley: Right now, the winds are picking up,

So it's kind of dodgy for the top.

We got about 45 mile an hour,

And they're supposed to increase throughout the day.

Narrator: The wind could prevent their crane

From being able to lift the concrete bucket to the top

And even knock the elevators out of action.

Morley: So you see that power cable

Shifting into the building?

If it gets tangled up, we lose power to the skip

And we get stranded up there,

So we got to keep a close eye on that cable.

So I'm going to come over. I'm going to call phil.

Rich is going to watch the cable.

Narrator: The team anxiously waits to hear from

The hoist operator if they can proceed.

-So what's it clocking? -All right. Get some out here.

Narrator: It's a go.

Yeah, let's go. Fly it up.

Man: Okay.

Wait.

But as v.I.P.S gather for a press call

To mark this milestone...

Hey, max!

...Kevin's team spots a gap around a section of pipe.

[ indistinct chatter ]

A hole in the roof would send wet concrete cascading

Into the slosh tank below.

Should've been done yesterday.

♪

Narrator: The crew quickly patches up the hole...

Here you go.

...And tapes over the joints as an extra precaution.

They can't take any risks today.

Man: The wind is going to take the cable for sure.

Narrator: With the wind speed rising,

The last bucket can't wait any longer.

Get in there, kathy.

And with one last team push...

One, two, three.

♪

...The vista tower hits full height.

Congratulations.

It's a team effort.

-Thank you, guys. -Congratulations.

Thank you.

Job done, on to the next one.

Narrator: It's been a herculean effort

From the construction crew.

It's a tremendous effort on everybody's part.

Narrator: Now the workers focus on putting the final touches

To the tower.

Schaack: Everybody has to be on their "a" game.

It's very much a team effort.

Narrator: The skyscraper's stunning windows reach

The summit, and this 1,200-foot-high building

Becomes the most radical and elegant skyscraper

On chicago's skyline.

The sense of accomplishment is pretty deep.

This one is special.

A lot of us have smaller kids,

And when we're gone, that's our legacy.

"our moms and our dads worked on that building.

They helped build that building."

You know, that's important to a lot of us.

♪

♪