Original subtitles

Narrator: In malaysia,

A team of elite engineers

Is racing to build a record-breaking skyscraper.

It's a giant. It is a giant.

Narrator: This mega-tall tower will soar over 2,000 feet high

And cost more than $1 billion.

In physical terms, it's huge.

♪

Narrator: To construct this colossus,

The team must battle sinking foundations...

When you put more weight on it, it's going to shrink.

Narrator: ...Torrential rain...

Oh, wow.

Narrator: ...Stifling heat...

So it's pretty hot.

Narrator: ...And deadly lightning storms.

It's quite frightening.

[ speaking foreign language ]

Narrator: 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

Kuala lumpur, capital of malaysia.

♪

This vibrant city is a melting pot of cultures...

♪

...A growing hub for business,

And becoming renowned for its giant skyscrapers,

Such as the famous petronas towers.

Malaysia's largest investment company, pnb,

Plans to build a tower

That will dwarf skyscrapers across the world.

It will be called the merdeka tower.

This is a major investment to contribute

To the urban development of kuala lumpur.

Narrator: The location they've chosen is one

That is central to malaysia's history.

This project is being constructed on what's arguably

The most important heritage site in malaysia.

♪

Narrator: 60 years ago,

At kuala lumpur's national stadium,

The country declared its independence.

The prime minister raised his hands,

And the whole stadium raised their hands,

Uttering the words, "merdeka,"

Which means "independence."

♪

Narrator: Architect karl fender must design a building

That not only commemorates the nation's proud past,

But is also a beacon for its bright future.

This is a site that marks a great change

In the history of malaysia and the future of malaysia.

Narrator: The merdeka tower will rise

To become the tallest skyscraper

In all of asia.

♪

Its 118 stories will soar over 2,000 feet into the sky.

♪

One million tons of concrete

Interweaved with over 20,000 tons of steel

Make up its intricate geometric structure.

At the tower's base sits its showpiece entrance,

A steel and glass atrium rising 450 feet high.

♪

Outside, over 36,000 panes of glass

Cover its crystalline facade.

Five miles of led lighting runs along every edge

Of the tower's diamond-shaped exterior,

Illuminating it around the clock.

Lighting up the skyline,

This is a truly revolutionary skyscraper.

♪

Project director peter ramstedt will be in charge

Of this mammoth construction.

One of his major concerns is the country's tropical climate.

It's gonna be a beautiful looking building,

But working in malaysia does have

A lot of its own challenges with the weather.

Could be sun, heat, thunderstorms that come through.

[ thunder crashes ]

We do have big lightning strikes here,

And when it gets dangerous like that,

Then obviously, we take cover.

♪

Narrator: The sheer scale of the skyscraper

Will supersize every challenge peter and his team face.

It will be the tallest building in the world,

After dubai's burj khalifa.

Fender: In physical terms, it's huge.

What goes into the construction of a building such as this?

It is mind-boggling.

Narrator: This is the plan --

First, engineers will sink foundation piles

200 feet into the ground,

Capping them with a 12-foot-thick concrete raft

To support the tower.

Above ground, workers will cast a central core

Using a huge mechanized mold.

They will surround the core

With eight super-thick concrete support columns

And lock the whole structure together with huge steel arms.

♪

Four giant cranes sit on top of the tower,

Providing all the materials the crew needs.

This includes 36,000 panels of glass

Embedded with a quarter of a million leds.

Finally, they will bring to life the stunning 42-story steel

And glass atrium at the tower's base,

A showpiece to mirror the crystalline tower.

♪

Work begins in 2014,

When diggers start excavating over 100,000 tons of earth.

♪

In charge of all on-site operations

Is construction manager

And ex-military man, gary salvidge.

It's very daunting, right from the planning stages,

To make sure that this building can actually be built

In the location where it is.

Narrator: The first major challenge

Is building a strong enough foundation

When the bedrock is inaccessible.

Ramstedt: People traditionally think

You drill until you hit rock.

You do it until you're a couple feet into it, then you stop.

Then you know you're in bedrock, right?

Yeah, we don't have that here.

Narrator: Kuala lumpur is built where two rivers converge,

And literally means "muddy confluence."

The ground here is soft sediment,

And hard bedrock can be 300 feet or more below the surface.

Ramstedt: Most of the time,

The soil is not enough to take the load.

You need to have the proper engineered solution relative

To the soil that you're in,

And that gets very complex. [ laughs ]

♪

Narrator: First trench cutters slice a 3-foot-thick channel

To create a circle 260 feet across.

♪

Workers fill the channel with concrete,

Creating a huge containing wall,

And sink 137 concrete columns, known as piles,

200 feet down into the ground,

Packed as close together as possible for maximum support.

Next, diggers excavate down to reveal the piles,

And iron workers stitch them together

With 300 miles of steel rebar,

Then cover it with 45,000 tons of concrete.

♪

When dry, this ultra-strong foundation

Should support the vast tower above with ease.

♪

Concrete warms as it sets and spoils if it gets too hot,

So the team has to do most of this massive pour at night

To avoid the daytime heat.

So we're doing everything to keep the temperature

As low as possible.

Narrator: As evening descends on kuala lumpur,

An army of concrete trucks invades the site.

It's a continuous process, so starting tonight the casting

Can go right away through the weekend.

So I should be pretty tired at the end of it.

♪

Narrator: The team runs checks on every truckload.

They have extreme measures in place for any concrete batch

That arrives too warm.

If they do not meet the correct temperature,

Then we'll inject liquid nitrogen in there

To cool the concrete down.

Narrator: The pour begins.

♪

The giant pump arms run around the clock,

Filling up this huge pit

With 3 1/2 million gallons of concrete.

♪

First 24 hours done. Another 24 more to go.

♪

Narrator: After an entire weekend of nonstop pouring,

Rain covers are placed on top for protection,

And the mammoth foundations are finally finished.

♪

The crew's next challenge is to build 118 stories

Of super-strong concrete up into the sky

Without a single misstep.

Believe you me, it isn't an easy concrete to chip out

If you make a mistake.

♪

♪

Narrator: In kuala lumpur, engineers constructing

The 2,000-foot-tall merdeka skyscraper

Get ready to cast the tower's huge vertical core

And eight surrounding columns.

But as they add each floor level,

They'll be confined by a lack of space.

Salvidge: Up top you don't have much room to work.

It would be very, very slow.

Narrator: The team needs an innovative solution

To turbocharge their race to the roof.

♪

To cast a single level of a core,

Workers build a mold from wooden panels

And fill it with concrete.

Traditionally they would then remove the panels,

Build new scaffolding, and lift the molds back up.

But for a building this tall, that would take years too long.

♪

Instead, steel rails bolted to the core support

A giant movable platform

That carries the mold sections as it climbs the rails.

Workers lock the mold's wooden panels together

When pouring concrete

And release them once the concrete is set.

Then hydraulics push the platform upwards,

Effortlessly transporting the molds and equipment

Up the tower to repeat the process.

This clever system means the team can power upwards,

Adding each new level in as little as five days.

♪

Inside the huge platform, concrete foreman

Pari receives the green light, and the climb begins.

♪

As the entire platform creeps up,

There are just inches to spare.

Each worker needs to watch out for any section of platform

Or formwork that might catch on the newly formed concrete walls.

♪

Eventually the platform stops at the next level.

The first climb is a success,

Proof their innovative system works.

♪

But as pari's team adds layer after layer of heavy concrete,

This skyscraper will begin to sink.

One of the secrets of building large buildings

That people don't really talk about

Is the settlement of the building.

A 118-story building is quite heavy.

It's going to settle.

It naturally will.

Narrator: Every week, at the lowest basement level,

A survey team measures the sinking

To make sure it matches their predictions.

The entire floor needs to sink at the same rate,

Or the tower will start to lean.

The sensor reads the bar code on the staff

And automatically detects any change in height.

The team works their way around the basement.

Okay. Okay.

Done?

Narrator: And the growing tower is given

The all-clear for another week.

M♪

Meanwhile, the construction team works nonstop

And relies on a steady stream of materials,

Including hundreds of tons of steel each week.

Keeping this building supplied with the steel,

With the concrete, the sand, everything is a daily task

Of bringing materials in to keep the building fed.

Narrator: And the only way to get all these materials

To the teams up top

Is by lifting them with the help of these mammoth cranes,

Situated on top of the building.

Ramstedt: The tower cranes for any kind of high-rise

Are like the lifeblood of the building.

The tower cranes is what gets the material up

To the highest parts of the building.

Narrator: Fed by the busy cranes,

The construction team hits their groove

And the skyscraper soars upwards.

Salvidge: Now we're achieving the five-day cycle,

It's very good.

One of the things that will be slowing us down now

Is actually raising the tower cranes fast enough

So the core can go up quicker.

Narrator: This is a problem they must solve, and quickly.

If the cranes stay fixed in place,

They'll block the tower from rising any further.

♪

♪

Narrator: In kuala lumpur,

As the central core of the merdeka tower

Climbs higher,

Its path is blocked by the four giant tower cranes.

Two tower cranes on the outside of the building

That are capable of picking up 65 tons,

So, you know, these aren't small plan equipment.

Narrator: Yet the cranes have a clever design feature

That allows them to stay one step above the rising concrete.

Each tower crane can jump itself,

So it only needs itself to move itself up the building.

♪

Narrator: The skyscraper's cranes are attached to

Its concrete core with two giant steel brackets.

♪

But as crews build the core higher and higher,

The cranes have to move up,

Otherwise, they'll impede progress.

First, engineers install a third bracket higher up the tower

That supports a pair of narrow metal ladders.

With these in place, engineers move the crane's metal feet

Onto this super-strong ladder.

A hydraulic press raises the crane up.

When it reaches the rung above,

A second set of feet catch onto the ladder.

The hydraulic piston resets and pushes off again.

By climbing up each two-foot-high rung at a time,

The cranes stay ahead of the crews below.

♪

[ speaking foreign language ]

Narrator: Today's crane jump is led by sankaran kanan.

He's head of safety for all equipment on site,

Including the giant tower cranes.

[ speaking foreign language ]

♪

Narrator: The team begins by detaching the bolts

That keep this 220-ton monster locked in place.

[ speaking foreign language ]

Narrator: Sankaran sends his men into the tower crane

Support column.

With a 600-foot drop below them,

The team and the huge crane

Begin to climb,

Suspended on nothing but two narrow strips of steel.

♪

The hydraulics powering the crane lift

Are under huge pressure

And must be controlled precisely.

♪

The crane's steel feet catch each rung

One thunderous bang after another.

[ thud ]

It takes three hours for the climbing crane

To reach the safety of the next bracket.

♪

The workers lock the crane back into position,

Ready to return to action the next day.

Poof, we are done.

♪

Narrator: But the higher the tower cranes

Climb into the sky,

The closer they get to malaysia's

Potentially deadly thunderstorms.

When a storm hits, the cranes stop

And the workers seek cover

With four notable exceptions --

The crane operators.

Salvidge: They stay in the cabs.

The safest place to be is in the cab

Because it's all isolated.

But it's quite frightening.

Those crane operators bring their own change of underwear

Up the top there as well, you know.

Narrator: A lightning strike can still knock out

The crane's electrical system, so the worse the storm gets,

The bigger the impact on gary's schedule and budget.

Salvidge: They're very expensive.

They need to be in operation all the time.

They say time is money, and they've got to be working.

They've got to be earning their money.

♪

♪

Narrator: In tropical malaysia,

A thunderous storm halts construction

Of the record-breaking 2,000-foot-tall merdeka tower.

♪

Once the storm finally clears,

Sankaran and his team check for damage.

The tower cranes creak back into action.

The team building the tallest tower in asia

Is almost a third of a way to the top.

But as they approach the 40th floor,

They face a new challenge.

They must tie the central core to the eight giant

Concrete support columns that surround it.

These type of buildings, very tall buildings,

These mega-high-rises naturally want to twist,

Want to torque, want to lean.

Narrator: The core and the mega-columns

Have only the thin floor levels to connect them

And could start to move independently.

To secure them, engineers insert giant pieces of steel

Into the concrete columns at three key levels up the tower.

They connect them to the core

With enormous diagonal arms called outriggers.

These tie the columns and the core together,

Allowing them to support each other and move as one.

For extra stability,

Engineers encircle the same levels with huge steel

Trusses that grip the tower like a series of belts,

Making it strong enough to extend high into the clouds.

♪

The outriggers are so large,

The team has to crane them up in separate pieces

And weld them together after they've been installed.

The strength provided by the three levels of outriggers

Will be crucial to the entire building.

Salvidge: The boys here need to keep this clear.

Narrator: So gary oversees this first level personally.

We look for the most experienced guys to do this.

This isn't an easy job.

Narrator: The welding crew uses powerful induction heaters

To warm the steel outriggers to 175 degrees.

If the steel was cold,

You wouldn't get the good conductivity

Between the weld and the plate that you're welding.

♪

Narrator: This is a massive undertaking.

Each outrigger level has over 40 huge joints,

And it takes a team of welders 100 hours

To complete each joint.

You look at the joint itself it's, you know, fillet weld.

It's big.

In fact, it's just like the v in my hands here, you know.

It's over 300 passes all the way around.

It's a big chunk of weld.

Narrator: Any moisture could fatally weaken the weld,

So the team shields their handiwork from the rain

And works in shifts to complete the join as fast as possible.

♪

♪

After four days, this final weld is finished

And ready for inspection.

This weld has to be a solid piece of metal, just like this.

You don't want no cracks in the armor, you know.

It's a beautiful building, and we want to keep it that way.

♪

The metal is so thick the crew needs to use ultrasound

To search for any defects hidden below the surface.

♪

The join checks out,

And gary signs off on the first outrigger level.

All the welds have all passed their tests.

We're happy with that.

We only want the best here, obviously.

Narrator: The first third of the tower holds strong,

And the crew just needs to repeat

The process twice more to reach full height.

♪

As the merdeka tower grows higher,

Gary's workforce grows ever bigger.

♪

This is one of the biggest job sites in kuala at the moment.

We have over 3,000 workers on here.

Narrator: But not everyone works above ground.

♪

In the four huge basement levels, engineers are installing

The mechanical, electrical,

And plumbing systems, known as mep.

♪

Mep can touch the life for every person.

Narrator: Abbas alizzi is in charge of all the systems

Needed to make the finished building habitable.

Abbas leads a small team of engineers

Responsible for a enough wiring

And plumbing to serve an entire city district.

Narrator: Each day, abbas and his deputy, johnny,

Prowl the basement levels checking up

On all the installation teams.

Their greatest challenge

Is to install the enormous air conditioning system.

And in this tropical climate, that's no easy task.

♪

♪

Narrator: In tropical kuala lumpur,

Where a team is building the enormous merdeka tower,

The temperature is a humid 80-plus degrees all year-round

So keeping the building cool will be a huge job.

You don't want to see a/c units

Hanging off the outside of the building, you know.

This is a smart building.

This is a modern building, you know, it's like...

Narrator: This gargantuan network of pipes

Is part of a monster cooling system

Designed to combat malaysia's tropical temperatures.

♪

The operation to cool the tower begins deep underground.

♪

First digger excavate a giant water tank

Big enough to fill 14 olympic swimming pools.

Beneath the building,

Giant chiller units will cool the water down to 40 degrees.

Nine enormous 100-kilowatt motors spin pumps

That force the cold water up the tower

Where it cools air on each floor.

Higher up the tower, extra pumps keep the cold water

Moving all the way to the top.

This vast network will circulate 10,000 gallons of water

Every minute to keep the tower cool

Despite the tropical heat.

For abbas' installation crew,

Squeezing the cooling system's machinery

Into an increasingly crowded basement is no simple task.

Today the crew is installing

The last of the nine giant motors

That sit on top of each water pump.

These drive the entire cooling system.

They lift the 5,500-pound motor

And gently rotate it to the correct angle.

The motor is a precise piece of engineering

And the crew can't afford to get any bumps or scrapes on it

As they begin the installation.

But they soon run into trouble.

The forklift can't lift

The motor high enough to put it into place.

The crew needs to install the motor today

To stay on schedule.

They have no option but to remove an overhead cable

Tray to make more headroom for the forklift.

With the extra space, the crew takes a second shot.

♪

The forklift creeps forward with millimeters to spare.

♪

[ shouting indistinctly ]

♪

Narrator: The motor finally touches down,

And the giant cooling system is complete.

Alizzi: Of course there is

A lot of surprises during the construction.

Cannot be 100%, but we try to make it 99%, 99.9.

[ laughs ]

♪

[ thunder crashes ]

Narrator: But the tower's cooling system

Is no help to the construction crews

Currently working in malaysia's tropical climate.

We have two seasons here -- it's hot,

Or it's raining.

That's it.

There ain't nothing else. [ laughs ]

Narrator: Rest breaks are crucial in the oppressive heat,

But even when the sun sets another danger remains --

Disease-carrying mosquitoes.

♪

Pest control teams need to fumigate the site every night.

♪

If a single case of dengue fever is reported,

The ministry of health

Would quarantine the entire site for two weeks.

Well, you can imagine how that would affect

The schedule of this project,

And especially being a multi-billion dollar job,

You know, there's big money involved.

Narrator: Daily spraying with insecticide

Keeps workers safe and the site running smoothly.

♪

Gary needs the tower schedule to stay on track.

That's because he's gearing up

For the biggest single operation of the entire construction --

Lifting the 60-ton keystone for the enormous atrium.

[ indistinct conversations ]

This is the biggest lift of the project.

Narrator: The steel installation team

Will need all the help they can get

Because on this build, you can never be too careful.

♪

♪

Narrator: The merdeka skyscraper is rising fast.

♪

Crews are installing the giant window panels...

[ indistinct conversations ]

Narrator: ...And testing the led lighting

That will be one of the tower's signature features.

♪

But one major showpiece of the tower's design

Is still to be built --

The atrium, an enormous structure

At the building's entrance.

The volume of the atrium

Is to do with the scale of the building.

We're standing underneath one of the tallest buildings

In the world.

It's appropriate to have an atrium, an entry experience,

A start to the building

Which is equally wondrous as the tower itself.

♪

Narrator: This will be a 450-foot-high

Hollow shell of steel and glass.

[ speaking foreign language ]

It's a huge space.

As you walk into the entrance of the building,

You can look all the way up 44 floors.

Narrator: Assembling this giant steel frame in midair

Is a precarious job,

And the team has reached a crucial stage.

They're installing the central piece of the atrium's framework,

Called the node.

It's the heaviest single segment of steel on the entire project.

♪

This will be the biggest lift of the build,

And it's got gary worried.

-Quite heavy. -Quite heavy, yes.

♪

Narrator: This 120,000-pound block

Of precisely engineered steel

Is the most important part of the tower's vast atrium.

The team must lift the node at exactly the right angle

So it fits onto its supports perfectly.

To do that, they use two cranes --

One to hold the bottom end clear of the ground,

And the other larger crane to rotate it.

Once it is at the right angle,

The main crane lifts it up the tower,

And the workers on the atrium's colossal steel beams

Carefully guide the node into position.

They must get the placement of this behemoth perfect

Because it alone will hold the entire

42-story atrium together.

♪

The two cranes quickly rotate the node to the correct angle.

[ whistle blows ]

♪

Workers detach the smaller crane,

And the bigger crane begins the main lift.

♪

But bad weather is on the horizon.

[ thunder crashes ]

Narrator: And before long, a storm is right on top of them.

♪

The risk of a lightning strike is too great.

The crew is forced to halt the operation.

We're lowering it back down.

And we'll start again later.

Narrator: And the alarm goes off to evacuate the site.

[ whistle blows ]

♪

The next morning,

The crew raises the node back up as quickly as possible.

♪

But they can't rush the final placement

Because there's no room for error.

Salvidge: You have to get it in the right position.

You have to maybe tilt it to the left,

Tilt it to the right.

If it's out by one degree,

It's not gonna meet up with that mega-column.

♪

Narrator: Manipulating 120,000 pounds of steel is hard work.

[ speaking indistinctly ]

♪

Narrator: But finally the node is in position.

Fantastic. Good job.

-Well done. -Thank you, sir.

All right. Good.

Narrator: Now the rest of the giant atrium

Can rise up safely.

Now that that's in, we can just carry on

And fly straight up the sides of the building now

With the rest of the steel.

♪

Narrator: This crystalline-shaped skyscraper

Climbs to the clouds.

And asia's tallest tower becomes a new jewel in the crown

For malaysia's skyscraper city.

It's iconic because of what it represents --

To come together and bring progress,

Not only for our current generation,

But for future generations.

Part of the success of all major buildings

Is the fact that they work on people's imaginations.

That sort of symbolism is what makes these sort of buildings

Legends within a city.

♪