Original subtitles

[Jay] How do you keep a glass giant tent

from collapsing on a futuristic new art center?

[Greg] DEFCON level went up.

One of these cables were to break,

that could've caused a lot of damage.

[Jay] Can engineers realize an extraordinary vision

for two skyscrapers that appear to spin?

These look like two giant twisting Slinkies

that could almost move.

[Jay] And how do you make a science museum

where visitors can experience the ocean depths?

[Seth] The 500,000-gallon shark tank,

the impact of a leak could be catastrophic.

[Jay] This is the age of the extraordinary.

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

It's like a visitor from another planet.

[Jay] Where ingenious engineers have unleashed

unchecked creativity.

Now their secrets are revealed

as we discover the amazing stories

of their construction.

[Mat] You look at this building

and your brain just screams at you.

This building does not make sense.

[Jay] To try and understand,

How Did They Build That?

Over in Kansas City, Missouri,

mind-blowing architecture and world-class acoustics

were given leading roles

in a brand-new performing arts center,

a design so bold and unlike anything else around,

it's won more standing ovations

than most Hollywood stars can ever dream of.

I've seen it several times, and all I can say is

bravo, bravo.

For decades, Kansas City sports fans

have flocked to its iconic football

and baseball stadiums.

But since 2011,

performing arts lovers have had

their own double-header attraction too.

[Nehemiah] This isn't the sort of building

people are used to seeing in Kansas City.

[Jay] A state-of-the-art concert hall and a theater,

housed in two space-age metallic shells,

draped in a gravity-defying glass curtain.

It grabs your attention.

It's very dramatic and beautiful.

It looks like an armadillo from one side.

[Jay] However you view it,

this cutting edge performing arts center

took exceptional engineering.

To be world-class, you had to do things

that were new and untested.

[Greg] This is, by far, the biggest thing

that I had done in my career.

[Jay] Combining radical design.

Multiple angles, multiple shapes.

[Jay] With technical precision.

[Greg] How do I keep the building

from being ripped out of the ground

by these cables?

[Jay] This is the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.

So how did they build it?

In the second half of the 20th Century,

no one embodied Kansas City's love

of sports and culture

better than pharmaceutical magnets and philanthropists

Ewing and Muriel Kauffman.

Ewing's passion for baseball is enshrined

in the magnificent Kauffman Stadium

while Muriel champions the performing arts.

I think she was passionate about the arts

because she loved music and she loved dancing

and she loved people.

[Jay] In 1995,

Muriel comes up with the idea

for a world-class concert and performance venue

that will house the city's ballet,

orchestra, and opera company.

[Julia] She said, "Build a performing arts center"

and left the room.

And that was it.

So that's all we had to go on.

And she died six weeks later.

We really didn't know what we were gonna build

and didn't have much of a clue.

[Jay] Julia Kauffman, though,

is determined to honor her mother's legacy.

She understood what the arts meant to a community

and a region, basically,

and what a world-class performance space

would mean for [indistinct] organizations

and, really, all organizations.

[Jay] In 1999, an 18-and-a-half acre site

is acquired downtown.

To transform it

into a world-class performing arts center,

they turned to Architect Moshe Safdie.

To me, music is so essential to my life,

as an architect, as a human being,

it fills my life.

[Jay] He sketches out his vision on a napkin over dinner.

[Moshe] It's just a series of radiating arches.

So you can think of a fan

or you can think of an accordion form.

And it has a rhythm to it.

[Jay] To make it a reality,

the team will have to build two separate performance spaces,

a theater and a concert hall,

united behind a massive glass lobby

suspended on high-tension cables.

First, they'll need to figure out

how to build foundations stable enough

to support the building and hold the cables in place.

They'll need to grapple with the mind-bending geometry

of the two auditoriums each with unique requirements.

Then they'll have to figure out

how to soundproof them from the noise

of the nearby interstate highways.

Finally, the tensioning cables

will create forces so great,

the entire building will move

which, somehow, they will have to deal with.

Then they'll have to cover its tent-like lobby

with more than 600 panes of glass.

How could we effectively even get the engineering to work,

let alone the schedule and the budget?

[Jay] In January, 2007,

work starts on the foundations

which are going to be anything but straightforward.

The underlying rock strata in Kansas City

is mostly limestone and shale.

[Nehemiah] Shale isn't very strong under pressure

and limestone can dissolve from acidic rain,

leading to sinkholes.

[Greg] They stack layer upon layer.

The idea is to find the right layer.

[Jay] As well as overcoming the unstable ground,

the foundations must do two jobs:

carry the weight of the building

and anchor 27 high-tension cables

to support the huge glass entrance.

[Greg] The solution was a very large foundation wall.

Even though this wall was up to four-feet thick in places,

we still had to grab ahold of the underlying rock.

[Jay] To secure the foundations into the bedrock,

they'll need to use high-tensile steel rock anchor.

[Nehemiah] These anchors are like giant screws

that drill through walls into the earth

to hold them in place.

[Jay] It takes six months to sink a foundation wall

that's 4 feet thick and goes down 50 feet,

where it's screwed into the bedrock.

Next, they'll have to build

not one but two concert halls.

Each comes with a uniquely complicated shape.

Both need to be soundproofed from each other

and the outside.

[Dan] The biggest strategy in terms of acoustics

was to develop the solution as a box in a box.

[Jay] To make their idea work, they need to be sure

the inner box never touches the outer one.

The seating and the whole construction

of the theater

is structurally completely independent

of the large roof that goes over the top.

And that means that vibrations and noise

can't be transmitted from the outside structure

to the inside structure.

[Jay] But building a soundproofed box

within a box is a lot easier

when the boxes are box-shaped.

[Greg] The curves and the geometry

of this structure created a lot more work.

One of the challenges we faced

when we were building this structure

over the top of another structure

was just maintaining clearances.

There were some areas that were very complicated

and they got very close to each other.

[Jay] As the outer shell is carefully installed

around each of the concert halls,

the soundproofing gap is just a little more

than the length of a smartphone.

[Greg] We utilized a seven-inch gap.

This entire isolated area

occurs completely over the top of the structure as well.

[Jay] With both performance spaces in place,

the biggest engineering challenge remains.

Safdie's vision is to unite them

with a large, curving glass lobby.

Creating a life-filled space

with incredible views that evoke the excitement

of being in a circus big top.

[Moshe] We started thinking of a glass stand.

Except, instead of canvas, you had glass there.

[Jay] Simple in theory,

but making this massive glass and steel tent

will be anything but easy.

It will be held in place

by 27 high-tension rods and cables.

We wanted to use cables because of their inherent strength.

That would mean that member sizes could be smaller

and the lobby could be more transparent

and the solution could be more elegant.

[Jay] The rods and cables will be anchored

into the foundation wall

and tied to a supporting arm

that acts like a tentpole.

From here, they are hung

to the outer edges of the roof.

[Greg] cables aren't very common in the United States,

especially in a glass roof.

So that was a little daunting at first.

[Jay] Step one is installing the cables.

So far, so straightforward.

[Dan] If you ever put up

a canopy or a tent in your backyard,

you just wanna get the posts right

and the tie-downs about right,

but everything is loose and floppy.

That's the first phase of construction.

Then we need to tighten things up.

And so the big pull was meant to be that tightening.

[Jay] Before they can do the job

of holding 487 tons of glass securely in place,

the cables must be individually tensioned

with hydraulic jacks.

There's a tremendous amount of force in those cables.

[Kyle] The loads on the cables

that pulled against the steel

started with 500,000 pounds of force on the center cable

and then changed as it went away from the center.

[Jay] As they start the tensioning process,

the stakes are high.

[Greg] DEFCON level went up.

One of these cables were to break,

that could've caused a lot of damage.

[Jay] One-by-one, the cables are tensioned.

There was more and more pressure being applied

as we worked our way across the front of the building.

[Jay] But it's not long before disaster strikes.

[Kyle] Those forces build up to a point

where we had a failure on one of the connections.

The column that supported the cable

came up out of its socket at the bottom.

I was in the building, and the building shook.

[Jay] In Kansas City,

the team building a performing arts venue

with a huge glass tent for a lobby

has hit a big problem.

While tensioning the steel support cables,

an important connection has failed.

[Kyle] This was a failure on a detail

that stopped the project.

[Jay] Before they can continue,

the team needs to bolster the connections

on all the building's columns.

We came back, we more heavily reinforced the welds.

We worked for about 2 months, 24 hours a day,

with iron workers.

Every piece of metal on that joint

was welded together with the other piece of metal.

[Jay] With the extra welding complete,

they can recommence tensioning.

But now there's another reason to worry.

As the cables are pulled taught,

the whole concert hall structure is going to move.

We had to basically build the building

leaning backwards to the north

so that, when we pulled to the south,

the whole building leaned forward into position.

The prediction was it would move two to six inches.

[Jay] Until the structure hits its final position,

important elements of the build are on hold.

For example, you can't put the elevators in

if the building's gonna move.

[Jay] The big pull

is a tense moment for the team.

It's always nervous to see your building

being put under that much load.

[Kyle] When we began to pull,

we started to see the building do exactly what was predicted.

[Jay] After a month of careful calibration,

all 27 cables are brought up to tension.

[Kyle] When the tensioning was completed,

we were all relieved.

[Jay] The final challenge is to fit

the 686 glass panels across each row of cables,

creating a 48,000-square-foot glass ceiling and facade.

[Kyle] We searched worldwide to have experts

in cable-supported glass.

They understood the delicacies

of pulling millions of pounds

across cables to support the glass.

[Jay] First, they design a system

that will minimize the complexity

of this 686-piece jigsaw puzzle.

[Greg] We worked a lot with the geometry

to make sure that we didn't have unique pieces

so that most of the pieces were not custom.

They were all the same size.

[Jay] Then, using suction clamps,

they maneuver the panes into place.

The slightest mistake in positioning

will throw off the whole sequence.

The glass is installed,

and then the flashing and the waterproofing

are put in.

[Jay] Slowly, the tent canopy takes shape.

Stretching across the roof of the lobby

before swooping down across the front of the building.

[Kyle] The facade was more difficult

because of gravity.

And there had to be work to pull the glass

into the structure,

at the same time, connecting it to the structure.

[Jay] It takes five months of painstaking positioning

before the center's extraordinary facade

is complete.

We made it and it was a great party.

[Jay] In September, 2011,

almost five years after construction began,

the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

is officially open to the public.

It's an event attended by 55,000 guests.

[Moshe] The lines to get into the building,

which is going all the way around,

it was like a pilgrimage.

It was super exciting.

[Jay] Since then, the center has garnered awards

for its architectural innovation and acoustic performance.

[Devon] It speaks of dance.

It speaks of art.

It speaks of performance.

And it speaks of quality.

Performing in this beauty elevates you.

It's a very comfortable hall for audiences.

And it really has elevated the art scene in Kansas City

in ways that are almost indescribable.

[Jay] Giving the people of Kansas City access

to a rich array of cultural experiences.

The Kauffman Center has brought a different level

of performing arts to Kansas City.

We've had acts here that we wouldn't have had,

so it's actually a wonderful gift to our community.

[Jay] Sixteen years after her dying wish,

Muriel Kauffman's vision has been realized.

I think she'd be absolutely thrilled.

I really do.

I really feel we've gone beyond her mission.

[music]

Ontario, Canada, was never a place

lacking incredible landmarks,

but that didn't stop the city of Mississauga

from getting itself a stunning new skyline.

With its fluid lines and enviable curves,

this new skyscraper project has been fondly dubbed

the Marilyn Monroe Towers.

The thing is there was only one Marilyn Monroe.

There are two of these absolute beauties.

Introducing Absolute Towers.

These look like two giant twisting Slinkies

that could almost move.

[Jay] Creating them was a huge gamble.

[Sam] There's a great deal of risk.

This has never been done before.

[Jay] Their twisting shape

caused huge headaches for the engineers.

There was a lot of worrying and anxiety

throughout the project.

There were sleepless nights, of course.

[Jay] Built as part

of a half-billion-dollar development,

it took five years

to construct two of the most beautifully curved

apartment towers in the world

and completely redefined the skyline of Mississauga.

So how did they build them?

It's the early 2000s,

and 15 miles from Toronto, Canada,

the city of Mississauga is rapidly expanding.

Its population grows by almost 10% in five years.

But growth has been haphazard.

And there isn't a city center to be proud of.

In 2005, that's all about to change.

[Mark] Mississauga had a vision

which, at the time, was quite revolutionary

to create a downtown around their city hall.

There were these huge plot of lands

that were undeveloped.

[Jay] A local developer shares the vision.

[Sam] It's an important intersection in the city.

And it's a prominent location.

And I always thought this was a great location

for a residential development.

[Jay] Together, they launch a competition

to find a design which will transform Mississauga.

The hope was always that we would see ideas

that we've never seen before,

new and creative approaches,

and, effectively, that's exactly how it turned out.

[Jay] The competition attracts

more than 90 entrants from across the world.

[Dang] We want something different

where everybody passing through sees something

which stand out as a landmark building.

[Jay] There's one design

that stops people in their tracks.

From the very beginning, MAD's design

was something that everyone gravitated to.

[Jay] Winners MAD Architects

will go on to become a global organization.

But at the time,

they're a brand-new architecture firm,

working out of Beijing, China.

They have a fantastic design,

but they are also untested.

We were like new graduate student

without any experience to build a high-rise building.

So that was a big challenge.

[Jay] In Mississauga, Ontario,

a contest to design a pair of apartment buildings

has been won

by up-and-coming firm MAD Architects,

despite the fact that they have never built a high-rise.

I cannot imagine the mix of emotions

that he must've felt.

"I've won. I've got it!

Oh, no, now I've gotta build the thing."

[Jay] What's more,

the winning design is for two towers

that would look like nothing that has been built before.

The key challenge was to think about possible future

of a high-rise building.

[Jay] It's going to be very difficult to bring to life.

I want to create something that looks not fixed.

When you look at the tower from different angle,

it looks like the building can move.

[Jay] The team's challenge will be to create

the impression that the two sculptural towers

are spinning

while making sure they are actually solid as a rock.

As well as building super strong foundations,

they've also gotta find a way

of digging deep enough to create six stories of parking.

Once they get out of the ground,

the floors will rotate as they go up the towers.

This means the team will have to find a way

of dealing with the uneven forces

that this will create.

While the extended floor plates that will become balconies

are in danger of transferring the bitter Canadian winter

directly into each of the 884 apartments.

If they can pull it off, they will create

two incredible curving majestic towers

that will completely transform the city skyline.

In winter 2007,

work begins excavating to create solid foundations.

And the huge six-story underground parking garage.

I think it was the deepest dig

in North America at the time.

[Jay] It's no easy job in the Mississauga ground.

It's actually weathered shale, which is a pretty hard soil,

so difficult to excavate.

Digging through shale can really slow a build down.

It requires very special equipment.

For about a year, all we heard was rock breaking,

just making our way down to the bottom of the hall.

[Jay] It takes 8 months

to dig through more than 90 feet of tough shale

and another 11 to construct the underground parking garage.

The next challenge is working out how to build

the twisting towers.

[Mark] It's an oval floor plate that's repeated,

but it rotates as it travels up the tower.

[Yuri] From ground floor to 10th floor, approximately,

it almost didn't turn, almost.

Maybe one degree.

Then it started to turn three degrees,

then five degrees, then seven degrees.

Then, again, the turning speed was reduced.

That creates a huge structural issue.

[Jay] There will be 209 degrees

of twists in the first tower

and 200 degrees in the second.

This will create uneven forces.

And dealing with them won't be easy.

In a standard tower, you can simply line up

the supporting columns through the building

to take the load.

But the offset floor plates make this impossible.

[Yuri] I remember I was thinking

about structural system which supports the building

to such extent

that I was just crossing a red light on the intersection.

So then I realized that it's better to think

not in driving the car.

[Jay] Thankfully, inspiration strikes.

They realize a solution

is to make the apartment walls load-bearing.

We decided, then, that the best way

would be to keep the walls in line.

I would call it a rectangular structural system

where walls are located

along gridlines.

[Jay] It's genius in its simplicity.

The walls will line up from the top

to the bottom of the entire building,

becoming short or longer

to allow for the oval floors' rotation.

This allows them to channel the weight of the building

down to the foundations.

[Yuri] According to this rectangular system,

all points of each individual floor

of all 56 floors were supported properly.

[Jay] They may have overcome one problem

caused by the spiraling shape,

but there are more to come.

In a typical apartment building,

each story is identical to build.

[Yuri] Workers like repetition.

When they build 50 floors,

every day, they come to work, and they do the same thing.

[Jay] But as each floor twists around the supporting walls,

it means creating a fresh floor plate

for every level.

And this will be a massive headache.

[Jay] In Mississauga,

the team behind a pair of spinning skyscrapers

needs to find a way to build

a total of 106 stories,

each with a slightly different floor plate,

while also saving time, money,

and the construction workers' sanity.

[Mark] We impose a system

that made a regular pattern apparent

so that we only had to have

five typical floor plates that changed.

So each one could be manipulated,

mirrored, rotated,

depending on where in the tower it was.

[Jay] Even then, this is still

an incredibly complicated design to pull off.

In a standard skyscraper,

you'd expect to complete a floor in four days.

[Dang] It took months to build the first floors.

After that, it took less than two weeks

for one floor.

Then the building goes very fast

and quicker towards the sky.

[Jay] The other big problem with the floor plates

is that they include a curving balcony

for each apartment.

[Mark] Continuous balconies contribute a lot

to heat loss in towers.

And it is a big issue. That needs to be dealt with.

[Jay] Because the balcony is part of the floor plate,

it joins the inside of the apartment

to the outside.

So Ontario's 20-degree Fahrenheit winter temperatures

could lead to serious chill inside.

[Sergio] Essentially, what you have to do

is you have to separate the balconies from the building.

So what's introduced is what's called the thermal break.

[Jay] Where the balcony floor passes inside the building,

the team creates a series of cavities

which are insulated to minimize heat loss.

Then the connections in between

are reinforced with steel bars

to make sure the floors stay firmly attached.

[Mark] There's always a resolution.

There's always a way to solve a problem.

You just have to think harder.

[Jay] Finally, the 364 feet of balconies

are ready to be wrapped in beautiful shimmering glass.

[Sergio] Even during the finishing stages,

there was the challenges,

but we knew that, every day,

by putting our heads together

and effectively moving forward one step at a time,

that we would get through it.

[Jay] In December 2012,

the Absolute Towers are ready

for people to start moving into the 884 apartments.

Two shining sculptures

that stand tall on the skyline,

redefining the city center of Mississauga.

[Abe] When I first saw the building, I thought,

"Wow, it'll really stand out on the horizon

and be this anchor for the city.

And this is what is going to be my home."

[Ketlin] You would think you get less impressed by it every day,

but I get impressed by the view or the feeling

every day more and more.

[Gino] Everything about it said,

"This is the right place to be."

And I'll be honest with you.

We feel like we're in a piece of art.

[Jay] It took five years to complete

these imposing twisting forms,

made from 82,000 cubic yards of concrete

and 10,000 tons of steel.

It was definitely a highlight of my career.

I learned a lot in a very short period of time.

[Yuri] Physically, this is landmark

for people who live there.

But for me, it is milestone of my life.

[Jay] Two beautiful statuesque curving towers

that put Mississauga well and truly on the map.

Looking at these buildings is so awe-inspiring.

You just feel it in your soul.

They are truly a symbol now of Mississauga.

[music]

When the magic city of Miami wanted to build

one of the most awesome science attractions

anywhere in the world,

they weren't gonna use any sleight-of-hand tricks

to cheat their millions of annual visitors.

So in went an amazing science museum,

a stupendous planetarium,

and a three-story, half-million gallon cone-shaped aquarium

with a 31-foot diameter oculus lens.

How did they manage to get all that

into just one building?

Architectural magic.

Miami, Florida,

famous for its sun-drenched sandy beaches,

its crystal-clear waters,

and it's palm trees blowing in the wind.

For the last 70 years,

it's also been home to a science museum

known today

as the Phillip & Patricia Frost Museum of Science.

The museum has been a staple of Miami

since the early 1950s.

It was actually run out of a house, originally.

Most of the exhibits were donated items

that were historic to Miami

or from the natural environment of Miami.

[Jay] In 1960, it got a new home

with more space and more exhibits.

But almost 50 years later, it's time for an upgrade.

Twelve million people are visiting Miami every year.

And the museum is determined to lure them in.

[Trevor] All these people from all over the world

are coming to Miami,

but they're coming to Miami to be outdoors.

So how do we get people that want to be outdoors

inside of a museum?

[Jay] In 2007,

the firm responsible for the Eden Project in England,

Grimshaw Architects,

wins the pitch to design the museum.

Grimshaw Architects really came up

with a great approach on how that might happen.

The intention was that visitors could freely move

between the different exhibits,

creating their own journeys into science

with a real level of intimacy.

And with hands-on experience,

the actual museum itself could showcase and tell stories.

[Jay] Their vision is for a new 250,000-square-foot museum

on the waterfront.

It will eventually house a huge aquarium

and planetarium.

But, first, they need to overcome the problems

caused by a location that's vulnerable

both to the immediate threat of hurricanes

and the long-term rise in the sea level.

Then they've got two major engineering challenges.

First, they will have to work out

how to support an enormous aquarium

that's raised off the ground,

construct its sloping sides from liquid concrete,

and put a huge oculus lens at the bottom

that will survive the pressure

of 4.5 million pounds of water.

Then there's the planetarium.

Here, they will need to construct

an 87-foot diameter self-supporting sphere

from enormous concrete panels.

It's a big ask.

[Christian] There were a range of huge challenges,

challenges that were set by the client.

It was a very ambitious client group

that wanted to have a really special, unique facility.

[Jay] In February 2012,

work begins as the team breaks ground

to create the foundations.

[Seth] It was excitement for sure

doing something that was never done before.

[Jay] And that includes making sure the museum

can cope with the twin threats

of rising sea levels

and flood risk from hurricanes.

[Vincent] We had to really consider,

how could the building be protected

from moments of coastal flooding?

[Jay] Florida has the highest risk

of any state in the US

of being hit by a hurricane.

In 1992, Hurricane Andrew caused

$26.5 billion worth of destruction.

The storm surge during Hurricane Andrew

in 1992, I think, was around plus 18 feet.

[Jay] The solution the team comes up with

lifts the project to new heights, literally.

The building is actually elevated

well above the floodplain designated requirements.

[Jay] To do this, the first thing

they construct is a parking garage,

which lifts the museum's ground floor and its exhibits

safely 21 feet above sea level

where they are further protected by deployable flood barriers.

Having managed to keep seawater out,

now they have to work out

how to keep half-a-million gallons of it in

because a centerpiece of the new museum

will be the huge aquarium.

[Vincent] It had to be scaled at a certain proportion

such that hammerhead sharks

could move around it as they grow

and develop their musculature evenly.

And so the tank had to be wide enough

for them to have a glide path in a figure of eight

without them just going in one direction around the tank.

[Jay] Not only will it need to be 117 feet wide

at its widest point,

but this aquarium also needs to be built

so that visitors can walk underneath

and look up at the fish through a huge lens.

[Vincent] It's an unusual tank.

It's elevated above ground,

which brings tremendous structural challenges,

as you can imagine.

[Corina] The water will weigh 4.5 million pounds

that will put an incredible amount of pressure on the tank.

If it's not spread out,

it can be so great

the that piers holding up the aquarium

can pierce the bottom and cause a disaster.

[Seth] We eventually came to the conclusion

of the six columns.

Those six columns are profiles.

They start off small at the base

and then they expand their dimension

as they hit the bottom surface of the tank.

So this provides a larger surface area,

reduces the stress.

[Jay] With the support system in place,

by winter 2014,

the team is ready to start building

the aquarium that will sit on top of it.

Preparations have to be perfect if they're gonna pull this off.

[Vincent] The tank has to be watertight.

And so that demanded it be one continuous concrete pour

so there were no cold junctions

between different moments

where the concrete is actually beginning to set.

[Jay] Any cold junctions,

where one section of the concrete sets

before the next one is poured,

could create structural weaknesses.

They must be avoided at all costs.

The impact of a leak

down the road could be catastrophic.

[Jay] This means pouring five million pounds of concrete

in one go.

[Vincent] There was just tremendous excitement.

But if I'm honest, there was also trepidation.

[Jay] On December 12, 2014, the day arrives.

[Vincent] This concrete pour involved the delivery

of 120 concrete trucks.

The concrete had to arrive in a particular schedule

to ensure that the right viscosity of concrete

was available to then be pumped

over 100 foot into hoses

and then down into the tank itself.

[Jay] A team of 300 people is needed to manage the pour

and to create the shape of the aquarium.

Everything about the geometry was unusual.

[Vincent] One of the biggest challenges

was the actual slope of the sides

and making sure the concrete stayed in place.

[Jay] If it doesn't, it will all pool at the bottom.

As well as using an extra thick mix of concrete,

the team comes up with an ingenious way

of working it on the aquarium's sloping side.

The contractors had designed platforms

that they could kneel on that were angled

to enable work crews

to then work the concrete into position.

It was an extraordinary effort, and this went of for hours.

It was over 24 hours of continuous pour.

[Jay] At 5:25 pm, on December 13th,

the team finishes the huge pour.

[Christian] It was great to see the relieved faces

and jubilant atmosphere of the people onsite.

[Jay] But the challenge of creating the aquarium

isn't quite over yet.

[Trevor] Just to make matters more complicated,

there's a large viewing window 30-feet in diameter

really at the bottom of that exhibit.

[Jay] In Miami, the team behind an ambitious new science museum

is trying to construct an enormous viewing window

that will enable visitors to look up

into a huge aquarium.

[Nehemiah] The lens itself,

I just think of how incredibly strong that is

to span that distance and to support all the weight

from the water and the creatures that are inside.

[Jay] They turn to a specialist factory

over 5,000 miles away in Rome, Italy,

to make a lens almost 32-feet wide

and 12-and-a-half inches thick.

[Christian] It's made out of acrylic.

Glass couldn't do such a job

with such a size, with such thickness.

[Jay] It takes three weeks

to ship the enormous window from Rome.

Once it's onsite,

it's a delicate operation to get it in place.

[Christian] This acrylic lens was lifted high up

over the roof of the aquarium building.

[Jay] It's a tense time for the team

as the window is lowered.

If anything goes wrong,

it will throw them months off-schedule.

[Christian] The ropes could've torn

or a stronger wind breeze could've moved the lens around,

and it would've been knocked into the concrete

and chipped of an edge.

[Jay] The closer they get to the bottom of the aquarium,

the trickier the maneuver becomes.

But, finally, they can breathe a sigh of relief

as it safely reaches its destination.

[Christian] Multiple things could've gone wrong.

Luckily, nothing did.

[Jay] The tank is filled with seawater

from the neighboring Biscayne Bay.

The weight of it pushes the lens down,

sealing it in place.

It was really almost like the topping out of the building.

It was a very important milestone in the project.

[Jay] But the team has another enormous task to grapple with.

Building the 87-foot-wide spherical planetarium

from concrete.

How do you actually build a complete sphere?

[Jay] While concrete can be poured

for the lower section,

creating the huge curving top section

from form work would be very expensive

and very difficult.

[Seth] We felt it would be much better

to utilize pre-cast concrete for the panels.

And then you have the exact geometry

that's required of the planetarium dome.

[Corina] Casting the panels off site

means that they can ensure the perfect quality

and ensure the exact shape that's needed.

Both of these will be really difficult

to achieve if they were to do it onsite.

The only snag is you actually have to get them

to the site after you've made them.

[Trevor] Massive pieces of concrete,

maybe 30 feet tall,

and then arching over another 15 feet.

[Jay] Each of the 32 panels

weighs the same as a bulldozer,

a colossal 50,000 pounds.

It demands a 550-ton crane

and a 50-foot tall scaffold tower.

[Trevor] That was trucked in and then craned into place

in sections almost like an orange slice.

So we would get two sections of that pre-cast concrete

that would arrive each day.

And then all throughout the night,

there were welders welding upside down

the embed plates,

holding those orange sections together.

[Jay] It takes two-and-a-half weeks

of 24-hour shifts

to complete the planetarium's incredible dome.

[Seth] It really does take the commitment and dedication

of the whole project team to pull that off.

[Jay] In May 2017, the jaw-dropping

Phillip & Patricia Frost Museum of Science

opens its doors to the public,

delighting over 700,000 people in its first year alone.

To be able to open to the public

and then seeing the public

experience that for the first time,

it was the highlight of my career, for sure.

This is absolutely awe-inspiring to look at,

dizzying, honestly.

[Man] It just brings new imagination to our kids

and they just really enjoyed the activities

and the hands-on features that the museum brings.

[Woman 2] The thing that I liked the most about the museum

is the planetarium,

so, yeah, that's really cool.

[Jay] The museum is not just a crowd-pleaser.

It's also an incredibly piece of architecture

and engineering that is a testament

to the ingenuity of the team.

We had, as a project team, this ambitious vision

for this one-of-a-kind museum.

And actually see it built today, it's just amazing.

[Vincent] Just seeing the life of the institution,

seeing the wonderments of children

peering through tanks,

playing with hands-on exhibits, is really joyful.

[Nehemiah] How can someone visit this place

and not leave inspired?

Both at science and at engineering.

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