All language subtitles for How.Did.They.Build.That.S03E03.303.1080p.HULU.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H264-WhiteHat_track3_[eng]

[Jay] How do you crack open
an apartment building

and create a man-made canyon
inside?

There were moments where I did
not think it was going to work,

and I did not think that we
would be able to pull it off.

[Jay] What happens
when you build

a 630-foot icon...

...without a safety harness?

I honestly didn't know how
dangerous it was

until I took my first step up to
that platform.

[Jay] And how do you
construct dazzling new offices

on a tiny scrap of
contaminated land

surrounded by water?

It's impossible,
what we've done.

Absolutely impossible.

[serious guitar music]

[Jay] This is the age
of the extraordinary.

[Amma] It's totally different
from anything around it.

It's like a visitor from
another planet.

[dramatic music]

[Jay] Where ingenious engineers

have unleashed
unchecked creativity.

Now, their secrets are revealed

as we discover
the amazing stories

of their construction.

[Mat] Look at this building,

and your brain just screams at
you.

This building does not make
sense.

[dramatic choral music]

[Jay] To try and understand...

How did they build that?

If I were to show you a 16-story
glass-clad tower

that has a huge canyon carved
right through its center,

you'd probably think the folks
who designed it were mad,

and you'd be right.

This awesome project in
Denver, Colorado,

is the design of Chinese studio
MAD Architects.

Seriously, how did they build
that?

[dramatic music]

[Jay] The American West's
rugged mountains and canyons

have provided inspiration for

authors, filmmakers, and
artists.

So, it may be no surprise that
in 2019,

they inspired a developer
and an architect

to have an incredible dream.

[dramatic music]

[Jay] They decided to build
a towering apartment building

in Denver, Colorado that
captured the wilderness

in a way never seen before.

It's a piece of amazing
theater.

[awe-inspiring music]

The building itself redefines
the city.

[Jay] A structure cracked open,

a mountain chasm carved into
its side.

The canyon really took
elements of the building

and pulled them apart.

[Jay] It was
an incredible design

with incredible challenges.

There were moments where it was
complete despair.

I did not think it was going
to work,

and I did not think that we
would be able to pull it off.

[awe-inspiring music]

[Jay] 187 apartments
over 16 floors,

with a breath-taking façade.

High-rise living that allows you
to walk

straight out into a ravine.

This is One River North.

So...

How'd they build it?

[intriguing music]

[Jay] Denver is set on
the high plains

and nestled at the foot of
the Rocky Mountains.

[intriguing music]

[Jay] It's a city surrounded by

some of the most
spectacular scenery

in the country.

People move here to take
advantage of getting out into

its incredible
natural surroundings,

hiking, biking,
and horse-back riding

on its beautiful trails.

[intriguing music]

[Jay] But, as with many
American cities,

Denver is locked in
an ongoing battle

with traffic congestion.

Getting out to the mountains
isn't always easy.

Developer Kevin Ratner
wants to change that.

[Kevin] I think that people are
happier in nature.

And I also think that people
respond to, uh,

the natural environment in
a way that is, uh...

That feels better.

[intriguing music]

[Jay] So, when he snaps up
a piece of prime real estate

in the River North district
of Denver,

Kevin brings in global
architecture firm MAD.

Although they have a history
of creating designs

inspired by nature,

such as Suzhou Stadium in China,

this time, they wanna take
things much further.

What we really wanted to do is,

we wanted to collapse that
distance between

the Rocky Mountains,

and bring the trails,
bring the water

to the residence.

I was thinking, "How about
you live in the building,

"but you feel yourself living
in the natural landscape?

Like a canyon space."

We cut through the structure
in different levels.

So, it, it become not only
a, a natural garden,

but it's become, uh,
a walkable experience.

[intriguing music]

[Jay] To achieve
this daring vision,

starting from pile foundations,

a central core will rise up
216 feet

to create 187 apartments
across 16 floors.

[intriguing music]

[Jay] It will be wrapped in
a beautiful curtain wall,

made up of thousands of
individual pieces of glass.

But then, a section will be
ripped away

to reveal a fantasy canyon.

Making it a reality will mean
finding ways to support floors

that appear to hang in
open space.

And figuring out how to sculpt
a ravine

in the heart of a 21st-century
apartment building.

[intriguing music]

[Jay] It's a bold idea,

and a big gamble for
the developers.

[intriguing music]

I thought for sure that there's
no way

that they would go for it.

But instead, they, it,
they were like, "How," you know,

"how can we not build
this project?"

Right?

[exciting music]

[Jay] With the developer
committed,

they break ground in summer,
2021.

They dig out 40-foot-deep piles

before beginning to construct
the 16-story building.

In a typical apartment building,

you just build a floor
and move up to the next.

This one is anything but
typical.

When you literally cut
into a building,

you're creating
massive problems.

To create this organic space
was quite a challenge,

because that's, that shape is
really irregular

and it goes through
all different levels.

[Ed] Each floor was unique.

Each floor had its own geometry,
its own design loads and shape.

And so, there was
different design at each level.

[serious music]

[Jay] Most often,

floors are supported by
regularly placed columns.

But the canyon design makes that
impossible.

[Jon] The issue was trying to
reduce the number of columns

that came down in the canyon.

'Cause we were really keen on
creating a space

where it was immersive.

We really wanted them to feel
like they were in nature,

where you didn't feel like
you were in

an architectural environment.

And so, that was really
the struggle that, uh,

the structural engineer
had to deal with.

[Jay] In order to avoid
using columns in the canyon,

the engineers turned to a tried
and tested engineering trick.

[Ed] The concept,
from the beginning

and all the way through,

involved cantilevering
that front face.

A cantilever is an overhang
that transfers all this weight

into the fixed end
down into the foundations.

This allows the floor to project
into space.

[Jay] Although the cantilevers
allow them to create the canyon,

they now have to deal with
the additional forces

they put on the rest of
the building.

[serious music]

The stresses get very high
around the supports,

and the punching shear stresses

transferring all that
heavy load through columns

are a challenge to deal with.

[Jay] These additional loads
are creating punching shear,

threatening the stability
of the rest of the building.

Punching shear can lead to
a building's collapse.

Imagine a slab is a piece of
paper,

and a pen is the column.

Put the paper above the pen,
push down,

and the pen punctures it.

That's what can happen with
a column and a slab.

[dramatic music]

[Jay] How would they prevent
this apartment building

from collapsing in on itself?

[intriguing music]

[Jay] In Denver, Colorado,

engineers are battling to create

an extraordinary new
apartment building

ripped open by
a man-made canyon.

The complex design creates
immense forces

where the columns meet
the floor slabs,

which could prove to be too much
for the structure to bear.

They turn to
an ingenious solution.

[Ed] We reinforce all around
the column

with something called
stud rails,

which is bars that are cast
into the slab

that provide
the shear reinforcing

around the column.

[Jay] They do this by spreading
the pressure

over a wide area of the column.

[serious music]

[Jay] Now the curvy concrete
floor slabs can be poured.

Usually a fairly
straightforward process,

but not when some of your floors
have nothing underneath them

for over 100 feet.

[Ed] Floors do not stack.

There is no structure below to
shore off of for construction.

Shoring is when you use
temporary props

to support each concrete floor

so that it can be poured and,
and held in place

until it dries.

[Ryan] In a typical
concrete frame building,

the formwork
and reshoring system

is installed across
approximately four floors.

In this building,

there were instances in which
it was across 9 or 11 floors.

So, two to three times
the amount of floors

had reshoring on them
during the construction process.

[Jay] At last, by August 2022,
the concrete slabs are dry.

Next, it's time to enclose
the building

by installing a curtain wall,
which will be made up of

over 2700
individual pieces of glass.

[intriguing music]

[Jay] Complicated enough
on its own,

the canyon slicing through it
creates an enormous headache.

The high quantity of
widely-varying shapes and sizes

of the enclosure system

creates a, a challenge for
coordination.

[Jay] It's a huge jigsaw puzzle
for the team.

Each piece has to be
carefully numbered.

Then it takes ten months of
precision work

to complete
the glass installation.

[serious music]

[Jay] The final challenge is
creating

the sculptural surface
of the canyon.

How can you recreate

what's taken hundreds of
thousands of years

for nature to form?

The canyon itself was
a first of its kind for us.

We had never, uh, seen it,
much less built it.

[Jay] To make the canyon
a reality,

they find inspiration from
a surprising source.

[people screaming excitedly]

The same kind of technology that
they use to create theme parks

is used to create features here.

[Jay] The system they use
is known as chip.

Steel rods are meticulously bet
and covered in mesh,

molded to create the canyon.

The backbone of it was
prefabricated

and shipped to site in pieces.

[Jay] Once in place,
it's coated in plaster.

In total, ten stories of
the building

are covered in
these plaster sculptures,

slowly forming the canyon.

[Ed] I don't think we felt like
it was really coming together

until the plaster
and the finishes,

and then, and then it
just was...

It just became
a really cool reality.

[empowering music]

[Jay] In May 2024, after nearly
three years of work,

One River North is ready to
welcome its first residents.

Their new homes completely
revolutionize

what city living can look like.

The building exceeded
my expectations.

When you stand on
the seventh floor,

you can look up, and you can see
all the way up

through the canyon,

all the way up to
the top of the building.

And the first time I walked out
there and experienced that,

I was just, I was really just
blown away.

[Dr. Mabry] Who wouldn't wanna
live close to nature like this?

You don't have to drive for
an hour

or take a walk outside of
the city.

You've got a canyon walk
right outside your front door.

[empowering music]

[Jay] An innovative
living landmark

that brings nature
and the mountains

to people's doorsteps.

[Monica] It's gorgeous.

It has water flow,
it has live trees.

I mean, I don't think there's
another building

not only in Denver,
but in the US that,

that has that.

[Ryan] I remember driving
down the highway

and catching the building out of
the corner of my eye,

and it just,
it just struck me in,

in a great way,

how significant that canyon was,

and how visible it was gonna be

from so many different points
of the city.

[empowering music]

[upbeat percussion music]

Two years before
the United States

sent astronauts to the moon,

the city of Saint Louis
was sending intrepid sightseers

to the top of
the world's largest arch.

But before anyone went
upward bound,

a problem had to be solved.

Because of its enormous size,

the arch had to be made in
two separate sections.

Its designers would only know
for sure

if they got their math right

and if the two sections would
actually meet in the middle

when they were raised 630 feet
up in the sky.

[intriguing] music]

[Jay] In 1947,

the state of Missouri challenged
the architecture world

to design a monument that would
honor the spirit

of the western pioneers.

[intriguing music]

[dynamic music]

[Jay] When completed,

it would become one of
the most recognizable structures

in the United States.

It's an iconic construction.

It completely changes
the skyline.

[Jay] New technology
would have to be developed

in order to build it.

[Pam] How do you even build this

when there's no crane that can
go 630 feet in the air?

[Jay] But controversial
hiring practices

also lead to protests
during its construction.

They climbed the arch
and handcuffed themselves

to the structure.

[dynamic music]

[Jay] Twenty-eight years later,

it would soar from foundations
piled 60 feet underground,

630 feet into the air

to become the tallest monument
in the United States...

[dramatic music]

[Jay] ...and the highest arch
in the world.

This is the Gateway Arch.

So, how did they build it?

[serious music]

[Jay] Saint Louis,
which is almost

the geographical center of
the US,

was originally a humble
fur-trading post.

And in 1804,
its position made it

the perfect jumping-off point
for two pioneers,

Lewis and Clark,

as they set out to explore
the uncharted West.

[awe-inspiring music]

[Jay] Over the next 100 years,
the city grew fast,

with the Mississippi and
Missouri rivers

making it the perfect
trading route.

But by the early 20th century,

with trading moving to
the railroad

and the Great Depression
taking its toll,

the city was down on its luck.

[Pam] Saint Louis, at the time,

was facing, like much of
the country, a depression.

A lot of people out of work.

The riverfront itself had become
a lot of abandoned warehouses

that were falling into
disrepair.

[Jay] Saint Louis needed to do
something

to turn its fortunes around.

In 1947, they launched
an enormous competition

to design an incredible monument

that will celebrate the city's
pioneering history

and give it back
its sense of pride.

They wanted something that would
spark excitement

and interest in the populace,

and become known nationally
as well as internationally.

[Jay] There are 172 entrants
from across the country.

The winner is Eero Saarinen.

He would go on to create
the futuristic TWA Flight Center

in New York's JFK Airport

and the Dulles National Airport
outside Washington D.C.

But winning the competition
is his first major commission.

Eero Saarinen envisioned
something that

represented Saint Louis

as the gateway to the West
in a very literal sense.

When you look at the arch,

you can imagine it as a doorway

to these new and
unexplored lands.

It really shows
the pioneer spirit.

[Jay] His vision is for

a futuristic reimagining
of an ancient structure.

An arch built on a scale
so vast,

it will pose
unprecedented challenges

for the engineers.

First, they will need to create
foundations strong enough

to support the weight of
the 630-foot-tall arch.

Then, they'll need to figure out

how to build its two
towering legs

from individual sections.

The whole plan will rest on
careful calculations,

which will only be proved right
or wrong

when the two halves of the arch
meet in the middle.

If they pull it off,

visitors will be able to take
a specially-built tram

up to an observation deck
at the top,

creating a magnificent
gateway tribute

to the westward expansion of
the United States

and its historic pioneers.

The commission is won in 1948.

But it takes another 14 years to
pull together the funding

to start work.

On the upside, this gives
Saarinen and the team

time to work out how on earth
they're gonna build it

in a time before
computer-aided design.

Saarinen has to calculate

the total weight of
the structure,

the dimensions, the angles,
the curves,

the strength of materials...

On and on and on.

It seems almost impossible to us
today

that they did this without
the benefit of modern computers.

[Jay] At the heart of
Saarinen's plan

is a piece of engineering magic.

It's called an inverted
catenary curve.

A catenary curve is the shape
of a hanging chain

that forms naturally

as a result of gravity pressing
along the entire chain.

[Susan] I went down in,
into the basement,

and up on the ceiling, um,

were these chains that were
hanging.

He was studying the proportions

and what the exact curve ratio
should be.

[Jay] Because the forces are
distributed

evenly and efficiently,

when one of these hanging curves
is inverted,

it becomes incredibly strong.

Just as well when you're
building

the nation's tallest monument.

[serious music]

[Jay] In June 1962,

work begins clearing the site.

First, they need to create
the foundations.

These footings need to be
strong enough

to handle the downward forces

that will be created by
the 630-foot arch.

This means using
reinforced concrete;

26,000 tons of it.

To make the concrete strong,

they'll need to pour it
continuously.

Otherwise, it won't set
uniformly.

Truck after truck had to
come in,

so it almost had to be like a,
a finely-tuned concert

to make sure they got in,
dumped their load of concrete,

and moved off so that
the next one could come in.

[Jay] Twenty-six hours

and 2,000 trucks
of concrete later,

the foundations are poured.

The next major challenge

is making sure the legs
are gonna be strong enough

to withstand the arch's weight.

For the solution, the team
turns to the humble triangle.

Each section of the arch is
created from

three super-strong links of
steel welded together.

Equilateral triangles are
the strongest shape,

as they distribute forces
equally and evenly

across all three sides.

No matter where the force
comes from,

you know the structure will not
deform.

[Jay] As each piece is
completed,

they are welded inside and out,
the legs slowly climbing higher.

[serious music]

[calm music]

[Jay] As work progresses,

in July 1964,

the same year
the Civil Rights Act

is signed into law,

the arch becomes the focus of
not the city's rebirth,

but of racial injustice
and discrimination.

Local man Percy Green scales it

to protest about how few
African Americans

are working on the project.

His six-hour sit-in is reported
across the country.

[Jennifer] This protest
actually brought attention

to these unfair
hiring practices,

and made a change in
federal hiring

with repercussions that echoes
today.

[Jay] Although the protest

doesn't improve things
immediately,

it helps bring about
long-term change.

[serious music]

[Jay] On site, work continues,
though it soon hits a problem.

The arch will be so high,

that there isn't a crane tall
enough

to finish the building it.

[Jennifer] For the first
few sections,

they used regular cranes.

At about 72 feet, they had to
switch their plan,

because the crane couldn't reach
that high.

[Jay] The solution is to devise
something truly extraordinary.

A crane that can climb the arch
as its built,

pulled up by rails
attached to each leg.

[Barb] They were able to have
a crane

actually climb up that rail.

The cranes would be able to

attach steel sections on
each leg.

[Jay] It's not long, though,
before the team is facing

its next challenge.

The higher up they went,
the stronger the winds felt.

There could be gusts of wind
that reached

50 or more miles per hour.

[Hayley] Winds create
sideways pressure

on a building.

So, you have to factor in
additional strength.

But if you make it too rigid,

then the force from the winds
could cause structural damage.

[serious music]

[Jay] To counteract the effect
of the wind,

the engineers come up with
a plan.

Each leg is built with
a double-skin steel wall.

Between them, tension cables
are run from top to bottom.

These cables are tightened
enough to provide stability,

but still allow the legs to
move,

absorbing the force of the wind

and preventing it from causing
structural damage.

It was designed that it will
sway up to 18 inches.

That'd be nine inches
either side.

And it's built to withstand
up to 150-mile-an-hour winds.

[Jay] Incredibly, the men
building it are doing so

hundreds of feet above
the ground

in a time where no one wore
safety harnesses.

I honestly didn't know
how dangerous it was

until I took my first step
up to that platform.

I was almost petrified.

It seemed like every time
we did something,

there was something scary
gonna happen.

It was the first job that
I was afraid every single day.

[Dr. Mabry]
It's literally insane.

You're working 600 feet up,

facing winds, and focusing on
doing your job.

One lapse in concentration,
one slip,

you'll be facing certain death.

[Kirk] The insurance companies
predicted that

they were gonna have
12 or 13 deaths

during the construction.

They had zero.

[calm music]

[Jay] In October 1965,
three years into the build,

they are ready to complete
the arch.

It's the moment of truth.

Success all comes down to those
two legs meeting in the middle.

If they don't,
it's total failure.

[upbeat percussion music]

[awe-inspiring music]

[Jay] In Saint Louis, Missouri,

the team building
the Gateway Arch

are holding their breath

as they fit the final section
of steel.

And they knew they had to be
within 1/32 of an inch

in order to make it all work.

The pressure was on.

After all this time and
all this effort,

all these thousands of people
working for years,

everything comes down to
this one moment.

[Jay] To make things
even more difficult...

Fitting the last piece is
a race against the clock.

[Jennifer] They knew they had
about 45 minutes

before the sun's heat would make
it impossible

for the last piece to fit into
place.

The sun was warmin' up
the south leg enough

to where they would not fit in.

[Jay] With time running out,
they call in reinforcements.

[dramatic music]

They had the fire department
come in

to start hosin' down
the south leg to cool it off

so it opened up enough
to drop that final piece in.

[Man] The leg's comin' up, Bill.

[dramatic music]

[Jay] Against the odds...

[dramatic music]

[Jay] ...the arch is complete.

[dramatic music]

[Jay] In June 1967,

five years after
construction began,

the magnificent monument
opens to the public.

[uplifting music]

[Jay] A specially-built tram
hidden inside the legs

is ready to carry over
a million people a year

up to a spectacular view
overlooking the city.

Saarinen's daughter was one of
the first to enjoy it.

The first time I went up
the arch,

I looked down at Saint Louis,

and I couldn't believe how
emotional I could feel,

um, looking through
those little windows.

[awe-inspiring music]

It's a beautiful sight.

It's somethin' to be proud of,

and for me,
it's a silver rainbow.

Yeah, a silver rainbow.

[Jay] Its 630 feet of
towering triangular steel

elegantly frames
historic Saint Louis,

giving the city back
its sense of pride.

The Gateway Arch was built
to put Saint Louis

back on the map,

and wow, did it do that.

[Ted] This thing is beautiful,

and people still come by
the millions to view it.

And that makes me proud.

[empowering music]

[upbeat percussion music]

What do you call a triangular
glass office block building

built, constructed on

a contaminated World War II
reclaimed plane fuel depot,

which appears to float above
a gigantic concrete pedestal

and has stunning views
all the way to Sweden?

Soundport.
Sounds good.

Yeah, it does,
and it looks even better.

[serious music]

[Jay] Copenhagen in Denmark
is regularly ranked as

one of Europe's happiest cities

thanks to its clean air,
healthy lifestyle,

and great work-life balance.

So, it's no wonder that when
one of

the world's biggest
pharmaceutical companies

wanted a striking new research
and design center,

they chose to build it here.

[dramatic music]

[Jay] Their new home is
a gleaming triangular building

that rises up from
the Copenhagen waterfront.

It stops you in your tracks.

It looks like the most
beautifully designed ship

ready to launch out to sea.

[Jay] Constructing it on this
tiny triangular plot, though,

meant overcoming some
serious problems.

It was a, a challenging site.

It's an alienated island.

No space around the, uh,
building.

[Jay] The land was contaminated,

the ground not strong enough to
build on.

It's impossible,
what we've done.

Absolutely impossible.

[Jay] Against all odds,

the team created
a 360,000-square-foot building

with astonishing views
out to sea.

Flooded with light from
a dome glass ceiling

made up of 638 individual panes.

This is Soundport.

So, how'd they build it?

[intriguing music]

[Jay] Back in the 1950s,

Ferring was a small Swedish
pharmaceutical company

operating out of two rooms.

Fast forward 60 years to
the 2010s,

and it's become one of

the biggest pharma names
in Scandinavia,

with offices worldwide.

They decide to build a new
research and development center

in Denmark.

To do it, they bring in one of
the world's

most influential
architecture practices,

Foster + Partners,

responsible for the
Millau Viaduct in France

and the Gherkin in London.

We're trying to do something
for them

that can be really
extraordinary.

And to have a client who's
trusting you to do something

that they see as really
important to them

and the future of their business
and also to their history,

that's a real pressure,
pressure as a designer.

[Jay] What's more, the client
has fallen in love

with a site with wonderful views
back over the water

to Sweden, where the company
was founded.

But while the views might
be good,

the plot is an awkward
triangular shape,

and that's only the beginning
of its challenges.

[upbeat music]

[Jay] The first problem to solve

will be building
a foundation system

that can keep water out

and support the weight of
the building

on the waterlogged site.

Then, the design will need to
squeeze

as much office space as possible
onto the triangular-shaped plot.

That will mean finding
clever ways

to support a building that
widens as it rises.

[upbeat music]

[Jay] Finally, they'll need to
devise a roof structure

that will look both beautiful
and give office workers

as much natural light as
possible,

even in the dark Danish winters.

[intriguing music]

[serious music]

[Jay] It's September 2016,

and before they can even break
ground,

they had their first challenge
to overcome.

[serious music]

[Jay] As is happening
more and more around the world,

to protect
unspoiled countryside,

the plan here is to
redevelop land

that's been used in the past.

That's if it can be made safe
to build on.

[Andrea] That existing piece
of land

was dating back to
the Second World War,

and had been used as, uh,
chemical storage.

[Jay] During the Second
World War,

chemicals were stored here,

and traces still remain
in the soil.

You have to take building on

contaminated land very
seriously.

[Jay] On this site, that's
particularly complicated.

The potential for things going
horribly wrong

increases exponentially
if you're excavating near water.

Hazardous pollutants leaking
into rivers, lakes, the sea,

or groundwater suddenly have
the potential to wreak havoc.

[Jay] Not only do they need to
make sure no contaminants

leak into the sea
and harm marine life...

...but the waterlogged soil
isn't strong enough

to support the weight of
the huge new building.

The ground is so weak,

that if you tried to build on
it,

there's a risk that the plot
starts to sink into the sea.

[Jay] They decided to surround
the island

with a steel wall hammered into
the ground.

This should stop the land from
collapsing,

and prevent contaminants
from leaking into the sea.

But there's a problem.

Water is still trickling in
through the gaps in

the sheet piling.

[Jay] One solution is to send
divers in

to weld the sheets underwater.

But the costs are mind-blowing.

It was more or less
more than one million.

Uh, extra, extra, extra money.

[Jay] How will they avoid
completely blowing their budget?

[percussion music]

[Jay] In Copenhagen, Denmark,

the team tasked with building

a new research and
development center

are struggling to stop seawater
flooding into the foundations.

Luckily, the project's
Italian engineers

come to the rescue.

Our company work many times in
Venice.

And in Venice, you are always
by the sea.

One thing that we have learned,
working in this environment,

was to seal the sheet piling
with,

with a mix of cement and wood.

[Jay] The team sprays a blend of
concrete and sawdust

along the perimeter of
the steel wall.

The tide does the rest,

pulling this into all the gaps,
which then seal.

[Dr. Mabry] It's
an amazing solution.

That's the best kind of
engineering.

The sawdust/cement mix creates
kind of a slurry

that's more like clay.

It can mold itself and better
fit in and seal gaps.

An ingenious idea that saved
millions of dollars.

[Jay] With the island sealed
from the sea,

in December 2017,

they begin the job of creating
the foundations

and making the site safe from
the contaminated soil.

The strategy they chose
to fix it is called capping.

Essentially, it's sealing
the whole site in concrete.

[Jay] It's a simple solution,

but one that involves pouring
7,800 cubic yards of concrete.

Now, they're finally ready to
start working on

the building itself.

[serious music]

[Jay] To fit enough office space
onto the tiny spit of island,

the building needs to be bigger
than the plot.

The architects have cleverly
designed it

to get wider as it rises,

with each floor larger
than the one underneath.

The trouble is supporting
the floors during construction

takes an extraordinary amount of
scaffolding.

It was pretty impacting to see
the west corner

as it was being built,

as the scaffolding and
the necessary props were added.

In the end, it was certainly
a project within the project.

[Jay] The next challenge is
devising a way of

holding up these floors
permanently.

The client doesn't want the
look of the building spoiled

with a lot of columns.

Instead, they come up with
an ingenious solution.

Hidden further back in
the building

are giant concrete cores,

supporting chunky
horizontal trusses.

Steel rods will hang from these

to support the floors from
above.

[serious music]

[Jay] Before the scaffolding can
be removed,

the rods must be tightened

to create the precise amount of
tension needed

to hold the floors' weight.

They have to carefully adjust
each of the bolts,

securing each rod in turn,

monitoring the tension
the entire time.

[Jay] If the rods end up
too taut or too slack,

there's a danger the floors will
crack or even collapse.

It's a tense moment for
the team,

led by Pietro Boerio.

I was obviously on the top of
the building, of the floor

when, when, uh, we, uh,
we make the tensioning.

Because...

Like...

the, the captain of the ship,
when the ship go down,

the captain go down, no?

The same! I was at the top of
the building.

[Jay] Thankfully,
all goes the plan.

And with the rods
successfully tightened,

the build continues.

The next challenge the team
faces

is making sure the building lets
in enough light.

In winter, Copenhagen can get

as little as seven hours of
daylight.

A problem that Danish
building rules

take very seriously.

There's a lot of regulations,
uh, like in many countries.

But for, for Denmark, I, I find
them maybe a little bit tougher.

[David] It means, effectively,

that every desk has to have
a minimum daylight on it,

and every worker at a desk needs
to have daylight and views.

What it means is you can't have
a desk

more than six meters away from
a window.

[Jay] It's easy to get light
along the edges of the building

by glazing the external walls.

But it's a challenge bringing it
to the center,

particularly with
the low winter sun.

The solution is an atrium,
but not any old atrium.

So, atriums don't let in
very much daylight.

If we're gonna do an atrium,

we have to reoptimize its
potential to,

to let in as much daylight
as possible.

[Jay] Whatever they build
needs to cover an area

of 17,000 square feet.

That's a lot of glass
and a lot of weight to support.

[David]
If you put a beam across,

it would be over
two meters deep.

So, obviously that's not going
to work

and give you the kind of
transparency.

[Jay] Luckily, the architects
are experts

when it comes to beautiful
glass roofs.

In 2000, Foster + Partners

covered the British Museum in
London

with a structure known as
gridshell.

Like an egg,

a gridshell's curved shape makes
it very strong,

which means it can have
the least amount of structure

with the most amount of glass.

The simplest way to make one

is to stitch together a lot of
flat triangles.

They are simple shapes,

and can more easily tile
complex surfaces

without needing to bend,

as any three points of
the triangle

can lie flat on
a curved surface.

[Jay] This time, though,

they wanna let even more light
in

by reducing the amount of steel
and creating bigger panes.

To do it, they decided to make
their gridshell

using four-sided shapes,
or quadrangles.

But that brings with it
the next major challenge.

For a quadrangle to adapt
to a curved surface,

at least one of its sides
needs to bend.

[Jay] Traditionally,
bent glass would have to be

manufactured using heat.

Making the vast number
of different-shaped pieces

required for a roof as complex
as this

would be expensive
and energy intensive.

So, they turn to
a pioneering method

called cold bending.

[David] Cold bending,

you're effectively mechanically
pushing it down on,

in, in situ.

[Jay] Because it can be done
on site,

it's much cheaper.

But forcing such
a delicate material to bend

requires painstaking planning.

[David] So, glass has

an inherent bending capacity
in it,

but there's a limit to how much
it bends until it fails.

So, it's really understanding
that point.

What is the maximum limit?

[Jay] Having carefully
calculated

exactly how much pressure
the glass can take,

638 individual flat glass panels

are carefully screwed into
the curved frame,

bending as they adapt to
its shape.

It takes 8,100 clamps
and more than 16,000 screws,

but at last,
the roof is complete.

[serious music]

[Jay] In October 2022,

Soundport opens its doors for
business.

[dynamic music]

[Jay] It's taken
33,000 cubic yards of concrete,

4,700 tons of steel,

and nine years to get here.

But now, it stands firm,

looking out across the water
to Sweden.

As a piece of architecture,
I think it's very, very good.

[David] Many people who visit
the building

are very surprised between
the outside and the inside.

It's completely unexpected

when they walk into
that atrium space.

[Mat] This is a dream
breathed from a plan.

Make the most of
these great views on the water,

and make sure the building's
stunning.

[serious music]

[dramatic music]

[dramatic choral music]