Megastructures

Megastructures

Synopsis

MegaStructures reveals the drama, the human interest and the breath-taking technological innovation behind the world's most impressive structures. They're miracles of modern engineering: built to last; built to excel. Massive structures that changed the face of the world. And each has a story to tell.

Episodes

Season 1
  • Golden Gate

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  • Dubai's Palm Island

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    An enormous project is underway in the Arabian Gulf that will literally change the face of the coastline. It's so vast it can be seen from space. Large artificial islands are being constructed and fashioned in the shape of massive palm trees. An ambitious engineering feat, it's part of an even bigger plan to transform Dubai into one of the world's premiere tourist destinations. Megastructures tells the story of the race to build this new engineering feat.

  • World's Biggest Casino

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    The World's Biggest Casino follows the construction of the Venetian in Macau, which is being groomed to be Asias capital of gambling. The Venetian, built by the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, features a giant hotel with 3000 suites, a 15,000 seat arena, a theatre, event halls, 350 shops along indoor canals 147 metres long, an outdoor lagoon for gondola rides, and above all, a huge casino floor the size ofseven football pitches. We follow the reclamation of land between two islands for this project, and watch it fly up in record time. From on-site factories, to having prefabricated parts trucked in from China, we see how the ambitious designs are...

  • Dubai's Dream Palace

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    Measuring more than 320 metres high and stretching higher than the Eiffel Tower, Dubai's Burj Al Arab is an architectural icon for the 21st Century. Rising out of the sea like a proud ship at sail, the Burj pushes the boundaries of engineering to the limit. How does a bold young design team that has never built anything taller than 16 stories tackle building the tallest and most luxurious hotel in the world? To start, the team creates an artificial island 270 metres off the coast of Dubai. Engineers utilize ground-breaking concrete blocks to reduce wave impact and prevent water from flooding. To protect the Burj from the elements, architects create...

  • Dubai Mega Mall

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  • Beijing Water Cube

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  • Shanghai Super Tower

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    What do you get if you take sixty thousand tons of steel, 260,000 cubic meters of concrete, 2000 dedicated Chinese workers and the best design brains in the business? The Shanghai World Financial Center. At 101 floors high it will not only be the tallest building on the Chinese mainland but one that can withstand the toughest challenges Planet Earth can throw at a skyscraper... and even deadlier human threats.

  • Beijing's Olympic Stadium

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  • Building Green Beijing

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    The 2008 Beijing Olympics is an opportunity for China to show the world that it is ready, willing and able to go green.

  • China's Smart Tower

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  • World's Fastest Rollercoaster

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    Follow the building of Kingda Ka, the world's fastest and tallest rollercoaster. Designed to go from 0 to 128 mph in 3.5 seconds and 45 stories tall, Kingda Ka is a structural giant.

  • London's Olympic Stadium

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    Bolted together like a giant Meccano set, London's 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium is built to be downsized to a 25,000-seat venue after the games.

  • World's Biggest Tent

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    World-renowned architect Norman Foster details his plans for a space-age entertainment centre in the capital of Kazakhstan.

  • Ecoark

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    Largely constructed from recycled plastic bottles, Taiwan's nine-story EcoARK Pavilion sets a new benchmark in green engineering.

  • Eco School

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    Workers build an environmentally friendly school for aborigines in southern Taiwan after their village was ravaged by Typhoon Morakot.

  • World's Greatest Concert Hall

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    On top of an old warehouse in Hamburg, the architects of Beijings Birds Nest Stadium are building a dramatic new concert hall.

  • World's First Floating Natural Gas Power Plant

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