Building Sea City (Engineering Documentary) | Spark

[Music] it is my father's vision and my father's dream to build the city this is experiment gnarliness a very expensive experiment but nobody's ever done this before normally engineering and the environment two diametrically opposed in this particular case it's the exact office of they're very much interdependent without the success of one you won't get the success of the other there's a construction revolution in the desert nation of Kuwait led by a team of mostly British and Australian engineers an army of construction workers are creating a new city amid the arid sands an eco city designed to bring the life of the sea into the heart of the desert the build it takes one man's vision his sons Drive negative engineering the committed workforce and a lot of big machine [Music] already it is attracting the attention of the world's leading architects and city planners [Music] for 18 months our cameras have followed designers contractors scientists and ecology as they struggle to turn vision into reality months of constant pressure and unique engineering challenges when you wear tights that this is showing that we're actually running quite a lot behind schedule if we don't see some mark changing - links for example them were in Lexington make the program if it works this deserted corner of Kuwait will become a global sensation and change the way we build forever welcome to see city [Music] kWe tees have a long history than the sea they fished it and used it to trade now the dream is for every family to earn a house on a beach by the arabian gulf and the chance to take out a boat for pleasure but by the late 1980s the country had less than 5 kilometers of sandy coastline left undeveloped this is fault al Mizuki his family owns la Isla a leading Kuwaiti development company his father halodule mazu knew his country needed more waterside living and so in 1985 he proposed building a tower quran a nun promising region of vestries and tidal creeks near the saudi border it was the idea and vision of my father had is limited and his dream was to build cities we applied for six locations and from those six locations we chose this location for me the main reason of it is there are two creeks and we use those two creeks to bring in the water in 1986 the Mizuki approached the British engineering and design consultancy called Bureau Apple [Music] Terry Ely of Bureau Happold worked with the Mizzou family and created a plan that was unprecedented scale and ambition the Mizzou quante to expand these small tidal waterways into a vast system of BeachLine inland lagoons all connected to the open sea taking featureless salt flyers and turning them into a new city the land was low-lying its sub classified like as a marshy area so it's too low to develop on-the-ground support to develop on but if you start removing material to produce waterways the material you remove for the waterways you use to raise the level of the land so that made this an ideal site in an ingenious moon material dug after the lagoons would be used not only to create a building platform but also to raise the height of the land here beyond any predicted sea level change due to global warming but before work could start war intervened Iraq's invasion of Kuwait brought occupation an ecological disaster ass Adam Hussein's retreating army set fire to hundreds of oil wells it took years for the region to recover and what it did the new city had arrival the mega construction projects of brash neighbor Dubai these massive land reclamation and building projects began in the 1990s have made headlines that's because the building contractors must pump millions of tons of sand into the Gulf to create artificial islands as plans were revived foresee city at the turn of the century the Mizuki would determined to do things differently [Music] [Applause] there are a number of such developments already in the Gulf and I'd like to think that you can achieve a good environmental solution at the same time as a good commercial solution many developments are developed on the basis of a grand idea maybe the grand idea is the shape but that hasn't been the case in this development grand idea here really differrent has always been the environment before work began they commissioned this an environmental impact assessment which calculated the environmental costs and benefits of building here this document would drive the whole design it soon became clear that the environmental challenges went way beyond the skills of most engineers and so they called in an expert British marine biologist David Jones professor David Jones is a leading expert on the marine biology of the Gulf the United Nations first brought him to Kuwait toward it the damage of war with Iraq so he approached this vast new development with a deep knowledge of the flora and fauna of the region I think if I had been the biologist might have been an engineer because I think both together we are trying to create an Sol problem we bought David Jones onto the project so that he could help from an early stage to influence the design rather than this so often unfortunately the case with the design that the design is prepared and then later try and justify its impact on the marine and Diamond David Jones soon became a key member of a team he needed to agree with the idea that a vast construction project like this could actually improve the environment rather than damage it it was suggested not to build in the sea but in the desert and bring if you like with sea to the debtor rather than the reverse and I think immediately to me this is a wonderful idea all construction impacts upon the environment but here this will be mitigated by creating a new marine as the heart of the project the environmental impact assessment findings became the team's overriding manual it was a risk they set up a rigorous testing system to monitor this to make sure that the ecological balance sheet stayed in credit this is where David Jones's expertise was vital working hand in hand with the engineers if you have the right company I don't see that biologists should have any disagreement with engineers I mean it's simply you're all looking at a common problem and looking for a common solution but how exactly do you turn in impoverish salt-flat into an eco city teeming with wildlife first of all you need a project director fundamentally we've had to create a city from scratch basic excavation of all of the channels the improvement of all the soils formation of all of the beaches the electricity the water the building of the sewage treatment plants the creation of the roads footpaths and all of these activities had to take place before somebody can actually commence building one of the villas in a 30-year career in Williams has worked on BBC corporate headquarters London's Wembley regeneration and the Saudi Arabian national museum but this is his biggest challenge by far a hundred thousand people will live here eventually in a city the size of in a London or Manhattan most will have direct access to a beach work began on the first phase in 2003 and the second in 2005 which phases a1 and a2 already full of water and the infrastructure complete the pressure is now on to complete a three the third and larger space so far in total more than 84 kilometers of new beaches right now we are over 60% complete on the earthworks and face cream what you'll see out there in a year's time is what you see out there with the water you'll see those waters flushing in naturally occurring into that area of land will have water from the Gulf heading inland naturally flushing that will look out there like a see the network of the lagoons across the first three phases will provide the waterside living that Kuwait is crave and space for two marinas big enough to take boats over a hundred feet long since nothing like sea city has ever been attempted before there are no off the peg solutions the design team must innovate constantly the lagoons will carry the water deep into the site digging them is a huge challenge in fact before the contractors can start work I have to deal with a massive problem lurking just below the surface the land here is not easy to work and that's because it's packed full of one of the construction industry's greatest enemies silt formed by changing sea levels over millions of years the fine soil particles found in this area are waterlogged and make the land soft and unstable any structure built here would soon sink while I used to walk on the gold I used to get stuck when we started bringing in the machines to work we lost several of them just below the surface this is silt there's a lot of it it's saturated and it has to go [Music] Andrew Higgs is responsible for ground condition investigation and monitoring I will be watching to make sure that the silt is all taken out during their routine excavation without removal against those who can't improving would have to do complicated foundations andrew is supervising the digging of a test pit to check on the extent of the silt in your new sector of the site many men for artificial silk list Eve requires an innovative solution y an oyster bulkheads the construction division of the company he is responsible for all the earthworks at the site a massive job well finally we came to the conclusion that there is no option than just D water it select the simpliest distance the spoof of the silk layers and fill the area up with suitable material English Act the first step is to drain the water from the saturated ground [Music] the dewatering process begins with a giant crane weighing 87 tons digging massive trenches each scoop removes ten tons when the soil is sufficiently dried out they go in to excavate they dig silt from two areas the sites of future buildings and the beds that will form the base of the new lagoons but with the huge quantities of sand needed to replace the renewed silt and the general looseness of the desert sand here something dramatic has to be done to firm up the ground and prevent building subsiding things are going to get noisy the term is dynamic compaction and compaction is the dropping of a weight onto the ground so that it has the equivalent of a small earthquake on the ground to compact the particles together and to push everything down we drop our weights from some 12 meters it's a 15 tonne weight so it is quite explosive force when it hits the ground it is a 24 hour a day operation and we do something like 1200 drops each half day shift if they didn't compact the land a house built here would soon subside over 50 centimeters first the team set out the area to be compacted using wooden pegs this carefully designed grid is based on a tried and tested method a crane then dropped the weight onto the points 15 times the craters are inspected to make sure that the compaction has been successful the ground is then leveled again and the grid pegged out ready for another five drops before a final inspection life of the site is dominated by digging moving and compacting the ground a huge logistical exercise masterminded by an oyster Bell that goes on 24 hours a day seven days a week the quantities of silt and sand being dug are staggering in the first phase about 12 million in the second phase 22 million and the third phase where we are 90% completed set now it was up to 40 billion cubic meter at 74 million cubic meters in total enough to fill London's Wembley Stadium 65 times over the construction of a3 has had a major impact on the whole area the waterways that will connect it to the sea will create a new island an island that will need a bridge and phase 3 cannot be opened under that bridge is complete when the bridge is completed seawater will flow beneath it until the huge new a3 marina destined to be the largest marina in the country and an important commercial focus of the new city [Music] parallel to the road bridge is a second one designed to carry essential services like sewage and drinking water over the future Lagoon which the designers decided was essential for access and maintenance if we put it under 10 metres of water and not going to be able to get down to service that pipe this pipe here delivers 45 million litres of water a day to our water towers up for this particular project so if we don't have a means of accessing this pipe at all times we lose continued water supply for this particular project an atmosphere catastrophe sea water will soon flow under these bridges filling up phase a3 the lagoons will eventually reach over 7 kilometres inland but how will water so far away from the sea remain fresh and healthy the project will not succeed if the water quality is poor and it stagnates the answer lies in the science of flushing when see city was first designed the lagoons were aligned with the prevailing winds to assist the natural flushing power of the local tides so we've got a city here which is built on predominantly shoreline we've allowed to build fingers in it aligned with a wind we've got a central spine of water which runs down there so it allows this water to come in pumping through the tide and flush it out it's all naturally circulating but as the lagoons reach ever further inland tide and wind are not enough to flush the furthest reaches of the site however the green philosophy of the project dictates that only natural forces are used to flush the lagoons it's a puzzle and the answer to it is large and metallic [Music] computer modeling showed that the tidal action alone wouldn't flush the legume Network completely the unique solution was giant metal gates controlled by the force of the tide these will drive water around the AIDS we network of lagoons and back out to sea creating circulation [Music] when the gators swung open this that water is going at full throttle at mid tide through this one gate alone there'll be something of the order of 40,000 gallons per second passing through the velocity at 7.2 million gallons per minute passing through all three gates here each 10-ton gate will be hung on huge hinges the incoming flood tide will force the gates will open and allow water to pass through then when the tide turns the natural head of water forces the upstream gate shower the downstream gate swings open to allow the impounded water to flush the lagoons this is the theory to verify their findings the team recruited local scientific help dr. Kareem raka and dr. khalid al banna work at Casilla the Kuwaiti Institute for scientific research both men were involved in remodeling the tidal flushing system to make sure there would be no danger of stagnation we found that there were some stagnant areas so what will happen in these stagnant areas you will start getting a deterioration in water quality special hot summer months you have high water temperature and without any flushing or the water being renewed you'll get water quality problems and that we try to avoid and that's why we introduced the title games you need to flush it naturally with the title title so when you have the gate you force the float to be moving in one direction where can go through the stagnant point and can create more mixing leaving nothing to chance scale models of the gates were tested at one of the world's leading hydraulic research centers the Danish hydraulic Institute in Copenhagen this proof that they could work [Music] the incoming flood tide will open the gates at one end to allow water into a three kilometer section of the a3 Lagoon [Music] when the tide adds the weight of the water in the impounded area will close the downstream gates but at the same time force the upstream gates open thus directing the trapped water to flow around the system it's like a natural pump so whatever volume goes into this impounded area which will be some millions of cubic meters will be pushed around the development and it'll make the water circulation very efficient I'll ensure in the more landed areas of development there's good circulation and therefore the water quality if all goes to plan the entire Lagoon system will be flushed and kept healthy using only the power of nature the amount of pumping equipment that you would need to push this round in itself it's an initial major capital cost the most important once you commit yourself to pumping you come to ever building a self-flushing water system at the heart of the project solve one problem but there are other more surprising challenges [Music] once the lagoons have been done attention turns of forming the beaches one of the prime selling points of the site eventually there will be almost 250 kilometres of new beaches here you might think it's easy to find sand in a desert nation but this is the wrong sort of sand for beaches there is a solution washing all of it four times every day working day and night they wash and sift 4000 tons of sand what they are looking for a large coarser grains which are perfect for making into beaches but there have been setbacks we have problems in a1 we have the Sun that was put on today our project had a lot of points and and have some cells in it so we had to Dyke a1 do you alter the whole thing clear it take all the water take all the silt out take all the sand out and wash it and then put it back in each new stretch of beach has stone groins built across it as barriers to prevent the energy of the waves moving the sand around [Music] we designed the groins differently internal than we do external the internal beaches are meant to be stable the primary beaches here which are exposed to the more open sea way they're designed to move with the storms if they change direction and evolve over time to become natural beaches rather than a more straight sort of manmade Beach [Music] Chris rose and Jamie Holmes are checking the beach profile on the most exposed part of the project the going is performing well yeah you can see them doing a good job of containing the material it's not not packaging around around this going here looking back over our surveys there's been some reorientation of the beach you can see that it's become quite invade quite natural though so it's quite natural I should shape yeah it's working well and there's there's only no threat to the property violence [Music] once the beaches have been meticulously formed the water can be letting as it has already been in places a 1 and a 2 with flushing so important to the success of the project an intense series of water quality tests is carried out in the waterways by the on-site team their results are then independently analyzed by kit here we conduct tests daily around the project of 14 locations and it demonstrates to us where the project is exceeding our expectations in terms of water politics they take water and sand samples from the shoreline starting under the water and below the load type on [Music] further samples come from the beach to check that the condition is stable [Music] all the samples are then taken back to an on-site laboratory for analysis when we take the sample the first key test is a visual one if we're seeing black sand within the sample that means that it is anaerobic there is a lack of oxygen within the Sun and next we take to the laboratory load a grain size distribution analysis and we're looking to see whether or not the original sound we laid on the beach has developed more fine-grain materials from from the air for example and the important thing there is that it potentially limits the oxygen available to habitats within the Sun the testing has shown that the water quality is impressive but the real proof of the quality of the newly created habitat is a number of creatures living in it marine biologist David Jones monitors the wildlife surveys to understand if the idea of a construction project actually creating environments is really possible we now have 800 species living in that area which just shows how water quality has improved so this has been a very successful experiment I mean nobody's ever tried this in the world 800 species already living in what was recently a desolate salt marsh is the culmination of years of planning hard work and hope [Music] the summer of 2009 is critical for SI city with work continuing on a3 the largest phase yet undertaken the immediate priorities are the road and service bridges it is not until they are completed that work can start on the final stages of the huge marina the new marine life will have to coexist with the planned leisure uses of a new city particularly boats and jet skis the completed site will have five marinas the a3 marina will house up to 700 boats the a2 marina with deep water access to the Gulf will accommodate 300 much larger Simon Errol marina consultant is visiting to discuss progress with Ian Williams if you wait is the largest boating market in the Gulf people think it's the UAE but it's not q8 has something in excess of 20,000 votes what is very strong here is the fishing market the local people very much like to go out 10 20 30 miles in the Gulf and do blue water fishing when marinas are so important to projects on many different facets it provides the heart where the focal point of a whole development it really will be the lifeblood of the project the vast 83 marina can only be flooded once the rock work is completed but work is falling behind schedule progress has been held up by a delay in obtaining rod for the revetment walls of the marina well the biggest problem we have in creating a rock based on marina is the fact that it doesn't have any rock so we're actually having to bring all of this rock from quarries in Saudi Arabia and of course that's a very slow process transporting this rock through international border the rock for the marina work is selected from this quarry in Saudi Arabia [Music] large pieces to fit the stone walls known as the revetment are graded and sorted they are then loaded onto lorries for the hundred and fifty mile cross-border drive to the site it looks really good it's really good I mean it must be costing a fortune to place all the stone so precisely like this but the end result is really great and from the perspective of the yachtsman I mean he's looking at beautiful missionary work in effect once they let the water interface through the whole of this enormous basin will be flooded making it the largest marina in Kuwait while work on the marina continues project director Ian Williams is dealing with another major issue deciding how to assess contractors who will be invited to tender to build the tidal gates that will flush the lagoons in the areas of the site furthest from the sea we ended up selecting a company called teaming from Cardiff in South Wales and clearly they were able to demonstrate to us that apart from being competitive had a very clear track record of manufacturing and installing hydraulic structures now that was key to us without these functioning properly the whole flushing regime of this Lagoon system could fail and that would mean the project would fail here in Wales the gates are being fabricated prior to shipping out to Kuwait [Music] they will be crucial to the success of the entire project ensuring circulation of water around the lagoon there are six gates in all and they took six months to build each gate is seven meters high six meters wide and weighs 10 tons to fit with sea city's commitments of sustainability these gates have been designed to need little maintenance during their 50-year lifetime each of the gates has been specially covered with a thermally applied aluminium coat to protect them from the highly saline waters it's midsummer in Kuwait temperatures can reach over 50 degrees centigrade but work on the vast sea city project goes on [Music] the continual dredging draining digging dumping and dynamic compaction means that this is a 24 hours a day seven days a week operation to keep the site running smoothly requires 40 bulldozers 90 articulated thumpers 87 excavators 48 dump trucks six huge cranes and a host of other machinery after a final concerted effort the road to 7/8 bridge opens on schedule it's a key moment to the TA and a rare chance to pause and celebrate a job well done the official opening is made by Kuwait Minister of Public Works dr. fidel suffered ali suffer with assistant undersecretary engineer abdul aziz al feb water will soon flow under the bridge creating a massive island surrounded by the new lagoons it's a time for celebration and reflection the minister seemed impressed he took a great deal of interest in the project and asked some very interesting questions but of course this was a milestone on the project and tomorrow we we move on [Music] [Applause] Phase III started in 2007 and will extend the total of the new beaches to 84 kilometers the team now just has four months to complete this phase in time for the sea water to flow down these channels and lap against these brand-new beaches the process is called water in when they did it for the earlier phases there were some celebration but for a three they are planning to make a much bigger splash and hoping that the ceremony will be performed by the nation's ruler the Emir of Kuwait but there is still a lot to do to meet the projected October date for the ceremonial flooding of the a three lagoons and marina and work is falling behind schedule the main problem is the revetment the painstaking process of lining the walls of the a3 marina with rock project director Ian Williams has called a meeting to check on progress we knew where it sites that this is shown that we're actually running quite a lot behind schedule so in terms of project this gave based on current progress what are you looking at one this is this is realistic the 17 to idealized and we're looking at pan it's going to be entered December ended December yes this through that one current plan current so this is actually slightly better than current productivity's or this is a good week which we think we can achieve the increased productivity or we know again yes might increase productivity is to get back to and September just to make this product well that's driving now that's that's correct fun cuz it'll add it's not going to be acceptable the wall around the marina is over a kilometer long and 10 meters high the team laying the stones into these revetment have been working hard and placing rocks with precision but this quest for perfection has caused them to fall behind schedule it's a problem that the management team was sold and sold quickly to have any chance of hitting the October watering date we were looking at the other day of one section of Redmond and essentially at one excavator picking up one rock from a stockpile 15 meters away tracking it ohms into position placing it down on on the slope the stones are so heavy these guys can't move excavator goes away picks up another rock spent a couple nights trying to select their rock comes back and he's had four guys trying to move this one rock around if we don't see some marked change within two weeks for example then we're unlikely to make the program you start to run out of time to rectify thankfully so unless we can see some shift within two weeks I think then it'll need a total rethink is to what we do from now on the revetment workers will get daily visits from the management the new schedule is extremely demanding but if see city is to hit its most important deadlines so far they have to make it work but this massive construction project is about more than rocks stones and concrete a key element of the city's green ambition is found here in this nursery where these tiny plants are part of a unique experiment using mangrove and other salt and drought tolerant species Quade is the most northerly point where mangroves have ever grown so any plants that flourish here will have to be carefully selected bred and nurtured Australian marine ecologist Ron Lachlan manages this bold and unusual initiative Anagha July 1 - we have a look at the flowering member oh yes of course there's a lot of manners of slowest now perhaps they're more than 200 blacks the olive gray group the young mangrove plants are taken from their nursery and planted on the islands in the middle of the new lagoons once established here and elsewhere on the site the mangroves will provide nurseries for young fish and other marine species as well as stabilizing the marine bed Ron Lockland is on his way to check progress on island one with the site's full-time marine biologist Missy and and Monica known to all as and they meet with select Javed but who is responsible for the day-to-day care of the plants I think good morning dear how I fi it's nice to see you again nice alikoya the plants will have to be tough to survive and eventually live without watering and the plants are responding quite well to the and to the salt water we haven't up that any sign of stress so far I get a lot of layering go much lower designers now yeah it's good time and when you went from like 50% seawater to get to 80 there's been no decline in growth logically absolutely though say that their flowering shows it isn't there's no stress at all I mean they're doing experiment well yeah excellent what we're trying to achieve here is to use saltwater from the Arabian Gulf for irrigation and to utilize salt plants which are called hello fitting plants salt loving plants and it's the first time there's ever been done in the integrated approach anywhere in the world so by the middle of July the hottest time of the year will be on 100% sea water yes good that should test to see how robust these plants are and pretty sure we'll have no troubles on this island we have a range of salt tolerant plants the classic the mangrove that you see growing here in the intertidal zone and so what we've achieved to you is to have a coastal landscape which is totally independent of fresh water I'm quite pleased with this I mean look what a lot of flowers get yeah romantic Jesus he's running one-year-old yeah so that means that the plants are well established you actually those roots are usable gets exchanged separate it's gone beyond a seedling stage now it's actually it's actually developed into it into an adult yeah a female plant most of the developments in the Gulf up until now have been coastal developments have been actually built in the marine environment in shallow water habitats so they've impacted on those marine resources this development has actually brought the sea inland which is unique [Music] the lagoons and marinas of sea city's latest phase called a3 are almost ready to receive three million gallons of seawater from the Arabian Gulf but there's a problem to finish lining the walls of the marina they need rock Kuwait does not have any and supplies from neighboring Saudi Arabia have just been cut off when we were getting clarity trucks today when they're not going to get any so they've literally just halted deliveries out of at Assad we needed something like another four thousand cubic meters of the actual under layer that's I know we were concentrating on the arms that we've now probably don't have enough of that at all filter itself well we'll have to see if we can substitute that with the crushed concrete and they all fish into the job project director Ian Williams and his team have to work fast first of all they quickly redesign some areas of a3 making slopes less steep and so suitable for lining with smaller rocks from their existing stockpile then they go on an urgent hunt for alternative materials a hunt that leads them to this site on the outskirts of Kuwait sitting here old concrete is crushed graded and recycled making it usable in new construction projects with re-engineering some of this material can be used as an under layer in the revetment work it's also environmentally a good way of dealing with it because we're actually taking the product and rather than quarrying material out out of the desert recycling a material no long as in use quick thinking and re-engineering has remedied a difficult situation there's now enough material to complete a three although the planned later phases will require a nuisance but delays over the work supply have added two other problems after detailed coordination a date for the water in termini is agreed the Emir of Kuwait will let the water flow into what will one day be the largest sea city in his nation the [Music] overriding ambition here is to create a new marine environment that even affects the revetment work only Rock work above the high tide level is filled with mortar leaving gaps in the lower areas as a place for marine life to colonize in the future in the flooded sections of the site the result has been everything that the designers hoped for and more you don't often have the opportunity to see a growing environment to see something that's starting from nothing and becoming a living body by the day we are seeing how the whole area is flourishing over the past five years independent ecological consultant dr. David Jones has conducted annual surveys these have demonstrated how the newly constructed ecosystem has already attracted a huge variety of marine life some of it quite rare such as the elusive ghost crab which has an unusual domestic arrangement who makes this whole and he takes the sand and he builds this castle this castle is to show he lives here to the female so when the female comes she sees this and she knows there's a man there and it's very rare it's very rare today is on the site again painting the latest BC survey no one has tried to bring water into a desert like this before the annual surveys give an insight into how the new marine environment is continually evolving one way of checking the numbers of species is through night netting the lights on the beach attract fish helping establish a picture of what is living in the lagoons dr. Jones is accompanied by an and the site's resident marine biologist when they come round yakking it really this way but something different well I am Alaska that's like the say come to the night the ghosts I am male there's like what I was here with all of species you can see the one spot see green yeah other green varieties the Busan Club also tonight by all the conditions are so favorable that the team made an astonishing discovery during the course of a fish survey in phase a two despite being under threat elsewhere around the world new coral is growing here there are about four or five species of corals encrusting into rocky bottoms and in a couple of years time they will develop into a wonderful reef for sure and that place is full of fishes and other invertebrates that believe has already started building into place so that is a will give a wonderful picture how effectively this habitat has been functioning in these days the finding of the coral really did sort of cat it for me in seeing that you know the complete ecosystem was actually now in place and providing nothing happens to to fundamentally destroy any of that I just see it continuing to grow and continuing to be a success [Music] and finally after six years of work one of the key moments of the whole development is imminent [Music] millions of gallons of water about to flood the massive a3 at the touch of a button by the Emir of Kuwait the complexity of coordinating the Emir's visit meant that the date was only confirmed three weeks before watery it's been a scramble to get all of the details sorted the team has put in long hours to create an exhibition and organize a ceremony fitting for an auspicious visitor who has backed the project for over 20 years it will be the defining moment and in recognition of its importance to Kuwait the Emir has allowed it to be named after himself Sabah al-ahmad Sea City has been absolutely mayhem from the from the time we were given the date as to when me and Mayor could come to creating what we're going to do working with the various invent people and graphic designers there will be an exhibition and the team has created a film show to illustrate the history of the project leading up to this moment when the Emir will name the city and allow the water to flow into the new phase but the event is about more than just the Emir's patronage it's not just an opening and a renaming of a city hopefully it will let people understand what we're all about what this project is done and what we've tried to achieve and I think a lot of these symbolic images behind will will actually hopefully hit home to people that this is an environment this is really special apart from the Emir and the Crown Prince a host of Kuwaiti VIPs diplomats and invited guests will witness the transformation from engineering dream to fully fledged city each guest passes through the exhibition of the site into the main hall after six years of round-the-clock work this imaginative construction project in the desert of Kuwait is on the threshold of its biggest step [Music] this archive assumable Amira shampoo bottle ahmed lady 7 Adam Rosales acclamation Lord what this year we die [Applause] when a banana we have it restored are achieved Cindy collagen when you right now or was awkward to me actually class would allow me [Music] - brunette we learn today yamir presses a button and water gushes down the pipes into Phase III [Music] [Applause] [Music] Oh [Music] [Applause] Walter's flowing and it's time for reflection and very glad to see my father's video of the end accomplished his dream of the difficulty it took almost three weeks to fill a three for some it's time for a break but there's much left to do starting tomorrow the tidal gates have arrived on schedule from whales after a 3,000 mile voyage it will take two and a half months to install check and commissioned the six games before the water can be let into the rest of a3 the team will have to solve the issue of the remaining rock required to complete the revetment work then it onto a four and the next phase of this huge development that will one day be home for a hundred thousand citizens of Sabah al-ahmad C city a4 is another 42 kilometers of new beaches and another 3 million drops of a 15 tonne weight to compact the soil it is a huge thing we're taking water so far inland now six kilometers we we're going to be achieving something I don't think many people have ever ever achieved and this is a momentous occasion and we shouldn't forget that in engineering terms this is no mean feat in the final analysis see city will stand or fall on one question can construction on this huge scale and the environment really work in harmony it wouldn't have mattered what we felt on the land if that didn't work that didn't work and became a stagnant body of water who would want to live here the project would not be what it is now you'd more or less fill it in so that was key without that working it was a unique selling point it is working we've succeeded we've achieved [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Spark

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Keywords: Spark, Science, Technology, Engineering, Learning, How To, education, documentary, factual, mind blown, engineering documentary, full documentary, building, construction, kuwait, sea city, building sea city, building documentary, construction documentary, sea city kuwait, engineering documentary 2017, science documentary, the universe, inventions creativity, gadget geek, adventure culture, documentaryphotograhy, scienceexplained, adventureisoutthere, scienceandnature, science side of tumblr

Id: NLjGEIuDaj8

Length: 52min 1sec (3121 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 13 2017