Europe’s Biggest Construction Site | Mega Constructions | Free Documentary

[Applause] [Music] an exceptional architectural monument has appeared in the heart of paris it houses a conservatory of music a multimedia library and spaces dedicated to urban culture its name the canopy we said we would do it and we did it's a gateway to paris this is no traditional office block it's truly monumental it's a subterranean city home to france's second busiest shopping centre and the largest underground railway station in the world it's a sunken five-story building from the 70s both the station and shopping center have gained a new lease of life thanks to the surface work it's the latest episode in the story of a neighborhood which has seen vast upheaval over the last two centuries [Music] work on this gigantic project began in 2011. first problem in its present state the 30 year old building was unable to support the colossal weight of the canopy 7 000 tons of framework that's humongous it's the weight of the eiffel tower the challenge was all the greater because the shopping centre and the station just below had to remain open to the public throughout the works that represents one million people walking about just beneath the work site only a 14 centimeter thick ceiling separated the work from the crowd [Music] 14 centimeters that's the thickness of the floorboarding you have at home when work started we said wow how are we going to build how will we manage this consequently safety was to be the major preoccupation at any moment we had to be able to evacuate the station in 10 minutes chevrolet station holds 40 000 people it's a stadium the unique constraints of this work site required architects and engineers to come up with revolutionary solutions you will discover the spectacular procedures for lifting an entire building for reinforcing existing foundations it was no longer a post it was a cathedral column and how a giant scaffolding tower can be moved at will the key word with a project like this is humility you can't say i've done this before you can't have welcome to one of the most complex work sites of the 21st century [Music] [Music] at the very heart of the city of light a renovation project of staggering complexity has just been finished its aim to reinvent the centre of paris standing in the first ahendisma a stone's throw from the sen the katya de al is the lungs of the capital within these narrow streets is concentrated an incredible range of amenities interwoven over six hectares can be found the world's biggest subterranean railway station comprising five subway lines and three main lines the second busiest shopping center in france and a complex network of traffic lanes and car parks it's a subterranean city beneath europe's largest pedestrian zone each day 1.3 million people crisscross this impressive multi-layer network it's a space with extraordinary potential the crowds are there it has a driving force this driving force is above all supplied by chatelil station opened in 1977 it was built to handle 40 000 customers a day 20 times this number were coming through in the early 2000s 1500 regional express trains come through here each day during rush hour a train arrives at each platform every two or three minutes that's a vast amount of through traffic through traffic which the infrastructure had difficulty handling at rush hour where still passengers lost their way in the labyrinth of corridors and escalators the space could not breathe it was suffocating through lack of direct street level access the same problem was true for the upper floors a victim of customer volume the shopping center was deteriorating it was cramped with little opening onto the outside world [Music] was virtually buried alive in as much as the shopping area was mainly concentrated in the basement at [Music] it was an incoherent chaotic space added to which there was petty crime there in the 1990s had a terrible reputation it was a place which was never appreciated by parisians nor those from the surrounding regions and even less by tourists the image of the neighborhood was never on a par with its importance since the middle ages lial had fed parisians [Music] the 19th century saw the building of 10 great market halls in steel and glass designed by the architect victor baltar they gave the neighborhood its name and its soul on the 27th of february 1969 trading activities moved 20 kilometers south to hajjis [Music] it was the end of 800 years of history the neighborhood lost its rezondetra but it was its very fabric which was most severely hit with the destruction of the pavilion baltar construction work began on a huge underground railway station it was traumatizing for parisians to see the city centre ripped open in the early 2000s the city of paris opened a great debate into the future of this unpopular neighborhood at the centre of the plan decided upon was the strong conviction that the area needed to be dug up and re-dimensioned to correspond with the exceptional number of people who frequented it they went into how this space could be made more comfortable brighter more comprehensive more accessible and above all how links between the underground world and the surface could be made more direct and natural which could be very easily crossed from north to south from east to west and access to the trains in the shopping center was to open out towards the garden in order to entice people outside and make it easy to find one's bearings once there to put it simply everything arriving here comes from the basement it was a question of how to take the through traffic arriving at the station and link it to street level paris through traffic structured the project it was an extensive project at all levels underground the station needed to be updated its surface area doubled passenger circulation made more fluid and direct surface access opened the shopping center was to be refreshed and its service area increased some of the vehicular thoroughfares were to be closed and car parks converted into shopping areas [Music] at surface area the four hectare garden was to be redeveloped and a unique architectural monument erected its name the canopy this is what links the basement to ground level it's the new face of liel like the canopy of a forest its roof of glass and steel has a plant-like quality to it it is a vast glass ceiling of 22 000 square meters the equivalent of three football pitches and is suspended between two buildings nearly 100 meters apart it is a suspension bridge comparable to the greatest works of art the canopy is actually a bridge or more precisely a succession of bridges spanning 100 meters to give you an idea that's about the size of a structure you would build to cross a large stream or river its impressive size is only rivaled by its weight 7000 tons of framework that's humongous it's the weight of the eiffel tower this is no traditional office block is truly monumental this was not one work site but several all advancing together at the same time as work was going on in the station other teams were working in the shopping centre and on the surface and all this work continued in the presence of the public [Music] the constraints were clearly defined no closure no impact on the shopping center and even less so on the station where the sheer volume of daily through traffic ruled out any interruption of services due to renovation work no question of closing a station central to the efficiency of the network connecting paris and its suburbs handling 850 000 commuters each day no question either of closing the most lucrative shopping center in france the crowds were everywhere alongside above and below the works this promiscuity made the redevelopment worksite at lial exceptional 2011 marked the beginning of this gigantic operation which was to last seven years and cost 1 billion euros before rebuilding it was necessary to destroy the visible part of the shopping center the pavilion to minimalize inconvenience to customers and inhabitants only a very limited time window was allowed for the destruction work we had strict time limits to avoid noise disturbance we could only make noise between seven and ten in the morning three hours didn't give us much time to demolish what was standing the work immediately encountered another problem how to bring in the necessary construction materials this was a huge logistical challenge because the site was at the very centre of one of the most tightly packed cities in the world you can imagine the problems which crop up when you're trying to deliver ten thousand tons of girders forty thousand square meters of glass and tens of thousands of cubic meters of concrete during these seven years of work fifty thousand heavy goods vehicles were to cross the already congested centre of paris one nightmare on top of another the only way of reaching the site was through this labyrinth of narrow alleyways the engineers had to take this into account the whole complexity of this sort of work site is that you can't bring in an oversized load if you can't deliver a 12 meter girder you have to plan accordingly before the logistical imperatives which you come up against at the beginning or during operations need to be anticipated and overcome by the project engineers well in advance even after solving the logistical problems the canopy was still a long way from completion they had to overcome a significant problem which would require a year's work and several operations to understand it we need to go underground [Music] the canopy needed to be built on top of the three levels of the shopping center and the two levels of chatelile station this amounted to a sunken five-story building [Music] however this structure was not built to support the colossal weight of the canopy [Music] this construction is sitting on top of a shopping center which when it was built in the 1970s was designed to support 250 kilos per square meter that's virtually nothing 250 kilograms per square meter is the load-bearing capacity of the floorboards in an ordinary house so no question of driving a truck over it let alone standing a glass and steel monster on it when work started we said wow how are we going to build how will we manage it the key word with a project like this is humility you can't say i've done this before you can't have the architects and engineers took on a huge challenge placed the canopy on the existing foundations without everything collapsing basically we had to stand the entire metal framework on the existing structure of the shopping center beneath our feet the existing structure was comprised of 57 pillars supporting the building which descended 20 meters to the railway platforms below [Music] the danger when placing something as massive as this on the existing pillars was that they would quite simply explode to avoid the worst happening engineers had to sound the entire structure to determine its capacities for resistance meticulous work which lasted more than a year [Music] amongst the first issues we studied was how the existing structure could support the weight of the canopy the entire existing structure had to be recalculated to find out where the canopy could be placed to carry out these calculations it was necessary to work from the original plans of the first structure and the verdict confirmed the engineer's fields [Music] it became apparent that some of the pillars of the infrastructure were incapable of supporting the additional weight out of the 57 pillars examined 17 failed the test they would have collapsed beneath the additional load the solution was to strengthen one by one the weak pillars a surgical operation began at the very heart of the building firstly it was necessary to strengthen the infrastructure primarily by adopting the pillars it's a process known as jacketing where you add bulk to them increasing the cross section the operation was carried out in two phases first phase metal bars were placed all around the pillars to hold the casing a bit like a splint second phase concrete was poured in the width of the pillars was fattened by between 50 centimeters to two meters making them fatter made them more solid i remember looking at one of the posts it must have been about three meters by three meters it was no longer a post it was a cathedral column once treated the most substantial pillars were capable of supporting 2500 tons at this stage the operation was not quite complete the engineers needed to work on what are known as the bearing devices they are positioned between the tops of the pillars and the beams one of them is shown in black in this image they play an essential role to understand we need to look at the building as a whole submitted to earth movements and the effect of passing trains the whole structure moves imperceptibly these vibrations submit the pillars to significant horizontal pressure these horizontal forces have a negative effect on the existing building in some cases they can cause serious damage over time the building could collapse thanks to the elastane they contain the bearing devices absorb movement the pillars are no longer submitted to horizontal forces but to be effective the size of the bearing devices need to be proportional to the load they carry during construction it was not only necessary to reinforce the pillars but also to change the bearing devices this time work needed to be carried out on all 57 existing pillars a long and delicate operation this involved a series of successive interventions over the course of several months the teams worked often in very cramped conditions to carry out these important operations hydraulic jacks were brought in to lift several when you change the wheel of a car you use a jack to take the weight you undo the lug nuts replace the wheel and lower the jack that's similar to what they did to the pillars two hydraulic jacks were installed at the top of the pillar these were used to lift the crossbeam in order to replace the existing bearing device with one of the correct size in the case of the deepest pillars the jacks lifted the entire building amounting to several thousands of tons an impressive figure all these operations threatened the very integrity of the building for obvious security reasons they were carried out at night it was always at night because you don't lift a flooring section when there are customers in the shops or commuters or trains passing through it took nine months to reinforce all the pillars but this didn't completely resolve the issue because the entire work site was being carried out on the roof of the shopping center you couldn't place your feet where you like imagine you're trying to walk along but you were obliged to only step on extremely precisely defined areas and yet on this extremely fragile flooring they needed to position four cranes each weighing 16 tons such strict constraints were virtually unheard of you're on the roof of a building which means that when you position a crane you need to create foundations for it somewhere within the shopping center as with the canopy the cranes needed to be supported by the existing pillars which crossed the shopping center the distance between these pillars was 12 meters in one direction and 16 meters in the other they were too far apart for the feet of a crane to stand directly on them a metal framework was necessary big enough to stand on four of the pillars and strong enough to hold a crane with its load 24 tons was thus added to the weight of the cranes but thanks to the better weight distribution the ceiling of the shopping center was no longer in danger of collapsing this 30 year old edifice was now ready to support the weight of the eiffel tower and the four cranes necessary for its construction it was a huge achievement for the architects and engineers but the most important question remained that of safety the works were to continue on the roof of the shopping center and above a station where one million people passed each day between the work site and this ant hill there was only a 14-centimetre 14 centimeters is the thickness of the floorboarding you have at home in your house or apartment so if the slightest load of a few hundred kilos should fall it could easily go through the roof of the shopping center it could have crashed onto the customers in one of the shops a catastrophe which needed to be avoided at all cost ideally you never build above an occupied building thereby completely eliminating this danger the objective was clear reduce the risk of accidents as much as possible by imposing drastic safety measures the worst scenario would have been a load falling from a crane while being manipulated such accidents are rare but often fatal the first rule of safety is to double the number of safety chains carrying each load double slings are a good safety measure if there's a problem with the first sling the second one takes the weight given that two precautions are better than one it was forbidden to manipulate the largest loads during the day on a regular work site loads of nine and a half 10 15 tons are moved every day with our colleagues still working below in this case the presence of the public meant we had to stipulate that anything over nine and a half tons could only be manipulated between midnight and five in the morning the times between which the shopping center was completely closed 116 nighttime operations were necessary to manipulate the biggest sections another catastrophic scenario had to be envisaged a collision between two loads being manipulated a likely accident when four cranes are working simultaneously within such a confined space a few seconds lapse of concentration on the part of a crane driver could cause a catastrophe fortunately the cranes were equipped with an anti-collision system the idea was simple each crane was equipped with gps which detected the position rotational direction and speed of its jib in real time in parallel with this a radio frequency communication system provided permanent contact between all four on-site cranes computers analyzed the movements of the jibs and evaluated the risk of a collision at the slightest sign of danger emergency procedures halted one of the cranes to allow the other to work in safety this automatic system eliminated the danger july 2012 after a year of preparatory work the construction of the canopy began the structure was complex two 22 000 square meter buildings were to support a huge u-shaped box girder from which the 15 louver boards of the glass roof were to project the 100-meter span between the two buildings meant this was in reality a suspension bridge 40 meters above the terrace what would flow underneath was not a river but a stream of customers using the shopping center in the station in terms of methodology it was an extremely complex work site it took experts two years to perfect the construction method our initial idea was to assemble the canopy in the garden and slide it over the terrace as each section was completed slide it on what are known in the trader's skids a technique which allows a structure to be moved on rails the advantage is that the louver boards and glass are assembled on the ground and not in mid-air above the public but this method would have required a lot of space which was not available on site added to this was another major inconvenience [Music] we could say the constraints won the day we quickly realized that with louvre boards spanning up to 100 meters they react a bit like spaghetti it would have been impossible to slide the structure without twisting its geometry maintaining its shape was crucial for us moving the structure would have risked deforming the canopy and its louver boards using skids was therefore abandoned in favor of the more radical solution of assembling everything in situ the canopy with its 15 louver boards a third of which are nearly 100 meters in length was to be assembled in midair in order for the labourers to work in safety and the public below to be protected the engineers used a huge scaffolding platform it was referred to as the decking and is in blue in these images it was a metal assembly of posts and beams in which a working floor was positioned allowing machines and laborers to erect the canopy half the size of a football pitch it weighed in at 1800 tons despite its impressive dimensions the decking only covered part of the terrace in order to comply with regulations the major constraint was keeping the terrace uncovered it served as lighting for the shopping center and was necessary for smoke evacuation in the event of fire this constraint meant the engineers had to come up with an original solution the scaffolding was to be movable standing on rails the decking gradually moved as work advanced so that it was vertically in line with the finished louver boards we built a working platform standing on temporary posts on this decking we built part of the spanning structure when the first section was finished we moved the decking and we completed the second section before going on to the third party it took six months to construct this temporary structure this also required architects and engineers to come up with innovative solutions for overcoming the difficult constraints of the site february 2013 saw the beginning of the most delicate phase the building of the glass and steel bridge which gave its name to the overall structure from a distance the organic nature of its shape hides the complexity of its lines when you look at the canopy you can see that it is flat like this but while we were building it sometimes it was sloping this way sometimes that way or like this but we needed to end up with something level to be faithful to the architect's drawings they needed to respect the shape it was imperative if this unique work was to be an architectural success the louvre boards were too long to be delivered in one piece they arrived in five to ten meter sections the challenge was to put them together in situ imagine imagine trying to build something in mid-air out of bits of macaroni can picture macaroni the pasta but it was like stringing macaroni together end to end to make a pretty necklace you have to precisely judge the rotation of each bit of macaroni in relation to the next in order to end up with the perfect curve with the work of these proportions the slightest error is fatal [Music] our technique involved overcoming these distortions because when you're dealing with a framework weighing several thousand tons once it's distorted you have a hard time setting in straight basically prevention is better than cure to anticipate the distortion of these immense louver boards they needed to take into account the type of steel they were made from its code name s460 it's a steel with extraordinary properties ultra lightweight and resistant ideal for building bridging structures however it has one major drawback this type of steel deforms easily [Music] this elasticity makes each stage of the assembly process extremely complex starting with the welding phase you have to realize that the thickness of metal use for these sections is not a question of millimeters it can go up to seven centimeters the welding process generates a great deal of heat which can distort the steel careful surveillance was necessary so with a construction like this given the number of elements to be assembled you have kilometers of welds to be studied tested in photographs you have reams of paper and certificates to testify that everything is in order once all the tubes had been welded together the louver board was ready for the next stage known as removing the centering it was a highly delicate phase once the beam the louver board had been completely assembled we removed the provisional supports and the beam settled into its definitive position the largest louver boards weigh nearly 50 tons the beams settled severely under their own weight so these structures like this often settle by a few millimeters the suppleness of this structure was in the order of 20 centimeters that means when we removed the provisional supports with the naked eye we could see the structure sagging in fact it was taking up its true position beneath the weight of the louver boards another element of the structure twisted the box girder a huge 813 ton beam running the length of the two buildings assembling and welding the 54 elements of which it is composed took nine months work it plays a fundamental role supporting all 15 louver boards the boards were welded onto this u made of thick metal girders naturally with each additional louver board they tended to twist and slope inwards if you imagine that my arms are the box girder it turns in on itself beneath the weight of the beams across its extremities this needs to be constantly supported but the more you advance the greater the torsion produced by the louver boards and the more the structure sinks [Music] to avoid twisting of the box girder engineers used the so-called counter jib technique the structure needed to be conceived and built pre-deformed in the opposite direction it's known as a counter jib when it's put in place it twists into its correct shape the two arms of the girder were constructed with five degree torsion as the louver boards were put in place this angle decreased until the girder attained its desired position the whole problem with this process was knowing precisely the degree of twist the box girder needed to have you're dealing with objects which are so huge that you can't intuitively know how they're going to behave anticipating these large-scale deformations requires the use of ultra-powerful computer software 15 years ago it would have been impossible to build the canopy simply because the software and computers weren't capable of handling the sheer volume of calculations necessary to anticipate all its construction phases cutting-edge technology was used in the service of this vast project the object was not to display architectural prowess but to finally give this neighborhood its true purpose that of being the gateway to paris the 1970s was the time of new towns springing up in the suburbs and to connect them all to the capital the regional express railway network was created with trains crisscrossing the ile de france region and paris for millions of people in these surrounding areas the idea of reaching the capital in just 30 minutes was a revolution shatlily al station is the nerve center of this vast network inaugurated on the 8th of december 1977 after six years work the station was a success and the number of travellers rocketed originally chatelaine station had a capacity of between 50 and 70 000 people a day it's clear that those quotas have exploded today more than 800 000 passengers a day pass through this hub with this station the lial district began a new page of its history it was no longer the belly of paris the nourishing neighborhood but the link between the outskirts and the center the suburbs and the capital in the early 2000s the station was feeling its age it could no longer handle the crowds and suffered from being buried it was the biggest station in europe but had no entrance at least not directly because it was entirely below the surface the only access was either through the forum de al shopping center or via the underground but nothing direct the station was a vast complicated place it wasn't one station but three interconnected ones the hub of the regional express network was linked to two underground stations lial and shetley to go from one to another passengers had to pass through a transit hall which they nicknamed the pinball machine the station took advantage of surface work to initiate a profound transformation it was a major challenge the object of the project was to ensure the station's functioning for the next 50 years and the one thing which was clear was that future passenger numbers would exceed one million to anticipate this the architects achieved the seemingly impossible increase the surface air of the station by 7 000 square meters the most important thing of course was to enlarge the transit areas to improve the connections with the underground because these were cramped spaces with very heavy through traffic work began in 2013 for four years at a cost of 200 million euros the architects were immediately faced with a major issue how to gain so much space in the depths of lial below ground space was so precious that nothing could be lost or gained simply transformed the solution was to incorporate some of the car parking space around the station with the closure of the underground traffic lanes they had become redundant this allowed us to gain space for the regional and underground networks it meant that certain critical points could be decongested [Music] the space gained in this way was partly given over to a new ultra modern control center capable of real-time analysis of passenger flow and network conditions but it also made it possible to totally rethink the transit halls [Music] these areas needed to be restructured to make them geometrically simpler to reduce the glut of information and to help them breathe better albeit virtually virtually because it was impossible to raise the ceiling the shopping center was just overhead the architects needed to create the illusion of space we developed massive glass tiles which have a metallic backing they create a sort of mirror effect this gives the impression of opening the space pushing back the walls and to give a feeling of height the ceiling was equipped with flush lighting a few centimeters were gained every little counts w transfer within the transit areas the starting point was the fact that it's stressful and that people don't go there to look around their primary concern is to quickly find the right direction and for passenger orientation architects worked on the pedestrian through routes the transit platform was simplified there's an initial control zone with turnstiles and a particular type of floor cover there are composite elements providing a gentle yellowish light from above making the area distinguishable at a distance the transit hall on the other hand was fitted with white lights resembling daylight accentuating the contrast with the control zone the station had direct surface access and could breathe at last [Music] work was completed in march 2017. it was now scaled up and ready to welcome the flow of passengers for the next 50 years it just remained for this giant interconnection point to find its face on the outside world this was the role of the canopy it is the majestic gateway for seven million people in the surrounding region this gave the project a certain monumental aura which it's proud of and which has obviously been noticed we said we would do it and we did it's a gateway to paris it is the extension of the station the visible expression of what is going on underground it gives passengers a fresh outlook on paris [Music] you arrive in chatelet there's this sort of ascension toward paris from down below you climb you climb and gradually gradually in a slightly cinemagraphic way you firstly begin to see the sky then you notice the treetops followed by centus church and then there's paris we felt this progression made for a fascinating trajectory [Music] and this trajectory continues into the completely rethought four hectare garden which beautifully sets off the surrounding historic buildings saint ustash church and the former stock exchange the garden is divided into squares by wide tree-lined pathways this too is a way of making the site more comprehensive and give a sense of grandeur [Music] this green space may appear to be a simple garden but that's an illusion it is of a more complex nature most people don't even realize that for virtually the entire route they're walking on the roof of a sunken five-story building for us it's obvious of course because we worked on it but it's easily forgotten that's what we wanted to achieve no ground beneath your feet just the roof of the forum deal under virtually the entire surface area it's a four hectare roof garden these days you hear a lot of talk about roof gardens and here you really are in one it's the biggest roof garden in paris its construction proved more difficult than you might imagine the guiding concept behind the project was to disguise as far as possible the fact that you're on a rooftop elements of the old garden first needed to be destroyed in order to uncover the roofing of the shopping center after 30 years of loyal service it was time for a makeover it was entirely waterproofed to avoid leakages a layer of asphalt did the trick once the surface was as good as new the soil could be placed over it when you're working on a roof garden the main constraint is the weight of the earth in which the plants are to grow one meter of damp soil weighs about two tons it's very very heavy the shopping center roof was tested to ascertain how much weight it could carry without collapsing the roofing of the forum was in certain places never intended to carry two meters of earth [Music] and in some places much more than that was needed to level the site between the highest and lowest points of the roofing there was up to five meters difference filling such a depth with earth would have added 10 tons per square meter to the shopping center roof it wouldn't have been able to take it reinforcing the entire roof would have been impossible because the shopping center below would have had to close so the architects and landscape gardeners turned the problem on its head if the structure couldn't be reinforced the earth would have to be made lighter it was necessary to invent a lightened soil system if planting was to be carried out over a large part of the forum the artificial soil needed to have advantages over natural soil but without its drawbacks it needed to be nourishing for whatever plants were chosen to go in it it needed to be light enough to adapt to different scenarios a thin or thick layer of soil for example the idea was to achieve a meter of soil weighing one-third of what normal soil would weigh after months of research the ideal composition was arrived at topsoil compost clay pebbles and a honeycomb support the last two of these elements only weigh four kilograms per cubic meter which is nothing compared to two tons of earth the honeycomb structure was put in place first onto which clay pebbles were thrown this was all finely covered with the soil mixture the objective was reached the artificial soil was far lighter once you've found the technical solution for overcoming the weight problem how do you make your tree stand up because this type of soil doesn't provide the roots with the same inertia they can draw from a massive compact earth [Music] wind exerts a lot of pressure on these trees of up to seven meters in height a simple gust could uproot them to overcome this danger artificial roots were created we put in metal trellising so that over time the roots would weave themselves around it in order for the tree to move it would have to lift a colossal volume of earth with it this way it won't budge [Music] 200 plant species were chosen for their resistance to this artificial environment but for their well-being the problem of water needed to be tackled how could the plant's needs be reconciled with the primary function of a roof [Music] since neolithic times roofs have been designed to reject water in order for plants to grow on them the criteria change the roof is expected to retain just enough water for the plants to flourish while indispensable for plants water is dangerous for the roof if it stagnates it could seep into the fore on the al and cause serious damage if we're back to low the water mustn't drain away too quickly it mustn't hang around too long either which would be detrimental to the soil so a lot of fine tuning of these aspects was necessary for this artificial soil garden as the water drains through the soil some of it is captured by the clay pebbles which act as a reservoir the plants can just take what they need when they're thirsty the surplus water continues its descent having reached the roof it is captured by a collector system it's basically a succession of you bends like those you find in the bathroom which are positioned beneath the roof obviously you can't see them from the shops every 100 square meters you have a u-bend which collects the water the roof is dotted with other elements vital to the correct functioning of the shopping center you have ventilation shafts smoke extractors technical cupboards access ladders for the fire services evacuation staircases for the public it's full of holes architects and engineers limited the visual impact of these elements on the garden using a clever dissimulation game the new face of lial is vegetal this makes for a peaceful place in tune with the times it takes its lead from the canopy this glass and steel edifice which plays with some beams in the way the branches of a tree might when you're standing beneath trees you can see how the light plays with the leaves this sometimes gives you a stream of light where the sun passes through that effect was definitely a source of inspiration this feeling is recreated by the very special shape of the louver boards the canopy is a succession of louver boards which are like this in the middle in which flatten out as they reach the buildings so if you look at it from underneath you can see daylight if you look at it from above it's closed captioning not the available of this glass required two years of research and a dozen prototypes close attention was paid to its color amber to reflect the light of a forest floor the desired effect was achieved after several attempts this glass is very particular it was created especially for the canopy it's completely unique because it's made by sticking two panes of totally different glass together the two are joined by an adhesive layer the upper layer owes its color to its translucent varnish mixed with gold and silver as for the lower layer it is made of extra white glass which ensures the overall solidity of the tile between the two is a plastic sheet which prevents the tile from shattering should it fall the unique character of the glass obliged engineers to subject the prototype to a battery of tests after a year of trials the glass eventually had its conformity certified the production of the eighteen thousand tiles could begin this was done on an industrial scale but each tile was unique their sizes and shapes varied in accordance with the undulation of the roof if we broke one of the tiles it obviously needed to be replaced the newly made one each time because it would have been impossible to make a double of every tile fortunately only three percent of the tiles were broken far less than on a normal work site it took nine months to position all twenty thousand square meters of glass it was the canopy's final stage after seven years work came to a close the last bulldozers left the site and tranquility returned to the area it was the beginning of a new era for this long disinherited popular neighborhood deep changes had come about the station and shopping center were at last in proportion with the ever increasing number of customers the canopy sunk lasting routes into the heart of paris the canopy has become a cult venue an emblematic place for everyone for parisians for people from the suburbs for tourists for all those who find themselves in paris and decide to explore it this vast urban operation changed the face of the capital forever i think that each of us i mean each of the 500 people involved from the laborer to the engineer can look at this edifice and say in a certain way i did that and that's extraordinary it's a once-in-a-lifetime thing it was an emblematic work site and there's a certain pride about having been part of it you say to yourself this will remain after half a century of wandering this neighborhood has finally broken its curse it has successfully transformed once the nurturing belly it has become the majestic gateway to paris [Music] you

Channel: Free Documentary

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Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full documentary, HD documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), engineering documentary, tech documentary, construction documentary, giant constructions, Mega Constructions, shopping mall construction, paris construction, Europe’s biggest construction site, big construction site, biggest construction sites in the world, Les Halle, construction time lapse

Id: yyVttOMYGXQ

Length: 52min 0sec (3120 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 27 2020