How To Build A Skyscraper | Super Structures | Spark

they seem to defy gravity forge from concrete and steel skyscrapers loom over today's urban jungle they buy the souls of those who built them the strength and courage of high steel workers but also the danger of such a passion for as gracefully as they rise skyscrapers collapse with unparalleled devastation yet in the face of potential disaster Architects continue to design these super structures higher and higher it's become a race towards the heavens to lay claim to the title tallest building in the world how far and how high will this never-ending race take us and what engineering marvels keep these super structures standing [Music] [Music] in Nagoya Japan despite continual rainstorms work progresses on one of the world's largest skyscrapers the jr central towers still in its infancy is being built in the middle of a crowded city and on top of a busy train station [Music] every facet of modern engineering skill is daily put to the test [Music] when completed this enormous skyscraper will encompass over four and a half million square feet about the size of the Pentagon or larger than one Tower of the World Trade Towers the twin towers and one of the largest buildings in Japan if not the world engineers in Nagoya like many throughout Japan have no choice but to build up land is scarce and real-estate prices are soaring to meet the needs of a growing population skyscrapers are the only answer in the capital of Malaysia space isn't an issue land for construction of bounds yet in Kuala Lumpur a modern 1,400 foot skyscraper is being built the Petronas Towers are an amazing structure of glass and steel with 88 floors and 100-foot spires these twin towers are a monument to architect CSR Polly's dreams whether built out of need or inspiration constructing these mammoth skyscrapers relies heavily upon technological advances but modern science isn't perfect and tragedy follows when one comes tumbling down [Applause] [Music] unwavering before such catastrophes engineers continue to build bigger and taller super structures [Music] well I think man has always wanted to get higher and higher he always climbed the mountain to see beyond it's also getting up to be taller too to overlook everyone else or to be recognized her to feel more powerful to build these modern-day monoliths architects and engineers first had to conquer the force of gravity during the mid-1800s the only means of vertical transportation other than climbing stairs was a rope and pulley system driven by a steam engine however the system was too dangerous for passengers since the ropes often broke frustrated Elisha Otis invented a safety brake that locks the platform to its guides in 1852 what seems a minor invention paves the way for the modern elevator [Music] slowly the public begins to trust the Otis Elevator upper level floors become fashionable and profitable as architects quickly adopt us no means of vertical transportation even with the use of an elevator buildings rising above 200 feet remain a dream the building materials of the day bricks stones and mortar are simply too heavy to allow great heights but in 1885 with the invention of the steel cage structure the modern skyscraper is born rather than build up from the ground that built the cage inside your bone structure your personal skeleton and then they put the skin on the outside and then the weight of that material is held at each floor level rather than pass all the way down 5 10 20 30 stories down to the ground and held at the bottom floor no it's all hung off of this very strong structural cage which is much lighter now because it's on a steel because the steel structure bears the majority of the weight the exterior or skin of the building can now be made of much lighter materials such as glass and aluminum the result is an explosion of buildings taller than anyone has ever seen the limits on masonry buildings were about 200 to 250 feet which is equivalent when t story with advent of the separation of the two systems the skeleton from the skin we became capable of pushing higher and much higher up to 50 70 80 or the Empire State Building type up to a hundred for over 100 years the steel cage structure has enabled engineers to build skyscrapers higher and higher [Music] it's the backbone of every tall buildings design even the 800 foot junior central towers in Nagoya the skyscraper is made up of three steel cages one forms the base of the building while to rise up within each tower without this technology skyscrapers rising above 20 storeys wouldn't be possible in Malaysia over 26,000 tons of steel and 160,000 cubic meters of concrete have been used in the framing of the Twin Towers these 88 storey steel and concrete skeletons will help the Petronas Towers claim the title tallest building in the world higher and higher they rise but at what altitude do skyscrapers become too dangerous over 50 years ago a deadly incident magnified these risks in 1945 the tallest building in the world is New York's Empire State Building rising an incredible 1250 feet built in just over 13 months it's claimed as the tallest skyscraper will last nearly 40 years perhaps this building greatest achievement is not its long stay at the top but it's jarring reminder of the dangers of building so high the Empire State Building and all New York City were wrapped in fog as a b-25 Mitchell bomber trying to reach a nearby airport crashed into the tallest structure in the world although the pilot and 13 others died the building sustained little damage and was open for business two days later its ability to survive a collision with a world war two bomber seemed to validate modern engineering technology soon the skyscraper building boom swept across the United States [Music] 29 years later the Sears Tower is built 1,454 feet above Chicago becoming the tallest skyscraper in the world [Music] while skyscraper construction within the United States has steadily declined since the early 1970s the jr. central towers and the petronas towers are at the forefront of a building boom along the Pacific Rim [Music] the competition is as fierce as ever you built a skyscraper in a taller and taller someone to make absolutely no economic sense but you're being built nonetheless it's just amazing the number of projects are being done out there they're being done quickly to ego no other reason there's no economic reason for them to be built other than sheer ego as this construction craze of enormous skyscrapers spreads throughout the Pacific Rim the engineering world is once again thrown into a battle to become the world's tallest building [Music] the petronas towers are planned to top off at 1476 feet 22 feet taller than the Sears Tower these very very tall very much is the World Trade Towers in New York or Sears in Chicago helped give the city a certain image and they become very important to that city's overall status symbol and an image the tall building represents catching up with the West or maybe even going ahead in some cases more than just pure need only time will tell that this architectural pursuit and proved deadly in New York to avoid future collisions airplanes were simply rerouted but the engineers of the junior central towers and the petronas towers are threatened by unavoidable forces they're building skyscrapers in one of the most seismic active regions in the world where the threat of a major earthquake is constant [Music] relying on the innovative designs that enabled the Sears Tower and the Empire State Building to reach such monumental Heights won't help they weren't designed with earthquakes in mind how safe will these new structures be when a violent earthquake shakes their very foundations [Music] as construction continues on the jr central towers the petronas towers nears completion engineers of both buildings hope their state-of-the-art technology will pass the test if it fails these latest additions to the tallest buildings in the world could come tumbling down modern building design will be pushed to its limits when mother nature strikes the construction of the jr central towers is a collaboration of the top engineering minds in both Japan and the United States [Music] it's also one of the most hazardous projects in the world located directly below the site is nagoya station 1.5 million people pass through here each day disregarding the huge skyscraper being built above them but what would happen if an earthquake hit such a densely populated area it's happened before September 19 1985 a killer earthquake registering 8.0 on the Richter scale rocks Mexico City [Music] [Music] more than 10,000 people are killed and over 100,000 are left homeless as the quake damages nearly 3,000 structures 400 totally collapse [Music] and for the city's towering skyscrapers once a symbol of modern Mexico this is the most devastating quake ever the ground was actually moving back and forth for a minute and a half or so about like this it just sort of a gentle motion back and forth and certainly in most buildings if you were in them you'd get a little seasick but you wouldn't feel very much it's not a very violent motion unless you happen to be a tall building during the 90 seconds of shaking in Mexico City some skyscrapers swayed six feet three times farther than what is considered safe neighboring buildings slammed into each other causing major damage ten years later a small office in the Japanese city of Kobe is tossed upside-down just one of the many casualties in a town devastated by a 7.2 earthquake [Music] over 100,000 buildings are destroyed another 80,000 are severely damaged and in downtown coal Bay home to most of the city's skyscrapers 60% of the buildings sustained significant structural damage over 20% are completely destroyed it's in this seismic environment the latest skyscraper building boom has erupted whether guided by sheer need or pure ego architects are designing some of the tallest buildings in the world on some of the most unstable land but the devastating failures in both Mexico City and Co Bay have provided the building community with valuable insights when the earth moves beneath these monoliths the skyscrapers center of gravity becomes offset the top of the building tends to lag behind the base putting more stress on the columns at the very least of the building could end up with a permanent bend in it which would yielded an economic total loss although the occupants may survive the situation the worst case would be that it got so far out of vertical that it actually fell over and that of course would be a catastrophic situation using computers to simulate the shaking of building sustains during a major earthquake researchers discovered that strengthening a skyscrapers foundation may prevent these structural failures in Nagoya Japan only 140 miles from Co Bay the engineers of the junior central towers are putting this latest research to the test [Music] four stories below the proposed lobby a vast digging campaign is underway in this subterranean cavern architect Paul Katz hopes to build the strongest foundation ever constructed for a skyscraper to anchor the building to the foundation engineers drive 125 foot high steel beams 60 feet into the bedrock eventually these columns will be encased in steel reinforcement bars and concrete this will become the base frame of the building and bear the majority of its weight the tremendous amount of reinforcement that is needed not only to carry the weight of the building but this is where all the forces of building come down and in earthquakes this is the part of the building that resists the lateral shaking that an earthquake will effect on it on a huge structure like this as an added precaution engineers will then fill the entire cavern with over 1.5 million cubic feet of concrete creating what is called a mat slab foundation is what we're seeing in the excavation yeah is entirely gonna be filled with concrete 5.5 meters in height which in a way the whole building then floats on and helps support the building from from tilting and for a matte slab foundation to work steel piles must be anchored in solid bedrock once in place they're locked together into a stronger structure by the cement slab poured around them finally the steel structure of the skyscraper above ground is bolted to the foundation piles bulla ho this becomes the skyscraper skeleton a single rigid structure anchored by a cement slab able to absorb most of an earthquakes lateral force the mat slab foundation prevents the steel cage structure above ground from swaying too far during an earthquake the taller the building the larger the foundation necessary because of the limited space surrounding the skyscraper the junior central towers foundation is forced to be excavated in an underground cavern while the Petronas Towers Foundation will spread out covering over one and a half acres the building that will become the tallest skyscraper in the world requires one of the largest mass slab foundations ever constructed before a drop of concrete is poured the bedrock at the proposed site of the twin Giants becomes an issue of concern for architect cesar pelli you need to go down to bedrock and you had to go very deep to start finding limestone and the limestone that we found was like Swiss cheese this fissured limestone requires drilling the building's foundation piles extraordinarily deep over 400 feet underground or more than six times the depth needed to build the jr central towers once the foundation piles are in over 70,000 tons of concrete are cast into the mat slab pouring round-the-clock the work continues for three straight days this was the largest single pour of concrete ever done timing and precision of the pour must be perfect if one side of the foundation were to dry and settle before the entire job is completed an uneven base would result if the skyscraper were built on an uneven base the building's weight distribution would be uneven out of balance an earthquake could easily bring in tumbling down but will these enormous mass slab foundations safeguard the buildings during a major earthquake [Music] or could they still topple to the ground as in Mexico City and Co Bay eventually we'll see an earthquake in in a major city that's a very large earthquake and I think the bad news is that we could see some severe unanticipated damage and perhaps even collapse of some tall buildings the junior central towers soon to be Japan's tallest building is designed to withstand a magnitude 8.0 earthquake its engineers believe the skyscraper is safe built to withstand the types of earthquakes that frequently strike the island nation a similar faith and building design has guided engineers in Los Angeles for years and on January 17 1994 when a magnitude 6.8 earthquake strikes Southern California their faith is shattered in some areas engineering fails and structures crumble amazingly none of la skyscrapers collapsed but an inspection of their inner steel cage frames reveals major damage in the welds connecting the vertical columns of many buildings to their horizontal beams the cracks did not only remain in the body of the well that connected the two pieces once it started it propagated that crack had the effect like a zipper effect it went right through the main body of the column element and it ruptured the column horizontally luckily the Northridge quake was short only 20 seconds laboratory tests showed that had the shaking lasted as long as either Mexico City or Co Bay these cracked beams would have ruptured completely causing structural failure in many of these buildings [Music] why Los Angeles struggles to repair its damaged skyscrapers the sobering news has sent shockwaves throughout the engineering world the steel cage structure once thought safe is now vulnerable during a strong earthquake [Music] engineers of the junior central towers and the petronas towers must now implement the latest technology to keep their skyscrapers upright to safeguard the millions of people who use the Goya station under the jr central towers and to keep the petronas towers as the tallest building in the world you [Music] in the aftermath of the Northridge earthquake in Southern California tall building engineers have answered a troubling question after years of research a possible solution exists for the stress induced failures that many buildings sustained during earthquakes skyscrapers all over the world including the jr central towers in Nagoya now use what's known as dampers these devices installed within the diagonal trusses of the steel cage structure reduced the building shaking during a quake much like shock absorbers in a car if you put a brace diagonally across crust it as you deformed the frame that element would shorten and lengthen and so if in that brace you actually put a damper some sort of hydraulic valve then it would absorb energy as it lengthened and shortened a skyscraper with dampers can absorb up to three times more energy produced by an earthquake than a building without them the longer a quake lasts the more effective a damper can be absorbing more energy with each shockwave tall building engineers have been quick to adopt the damper technology 14 have been installed within petronas twin towers and six are being installed in the jr central towers while engineers in Nagoya and Kuala Lumpur incorporate technology to combat potentially destructive earthquakes another more immediate danger swirls above the wind affects all skyscrapers the taller of building rises the stronger the wind and faces skyscraper design must take into account these turbulent forces towering over 1,400 feet above Chicago the Sears Tower sustains daily gusts that can average 75 miles per hour the wind force by and large dominates he's very tall building dominates the design it's more important than the weight of the building and the sense of just holding it up it is the dominant force the wind is is what drives the design of very tall buildings [Music] when wind hits a building it acts much like the sail of a boat in order to withstand these blustery forces a tall building must be flexible enough to bend and absorb some of the wind while still remaining rigid enough not to topple over or even snap in half the jr central towers provides a model of how this balance is achieved the three inner steel cages provide flexibility allowing the towers to sway up to four and a half feet in strong winds while the rigid central core of reinforced concrete adds the stability needed to prevent the tower from snapping and winds gusting up to 175 miles per hour [Music] however as skyscrapers are built higher and higher they encounter stronger winds and are required to sway even farther to remain upright Architects must now deal with a whole new design problem mr. Wabo like a tuning fork in order to maintain its structural integrity under those forces so the question now is a more difficult one it's not artistic it's not properly scientific it's judgmental and it's about human comfort it's about on those top floors how much vibration can people in offices tolerate and be comfortable with at what point do we need someone at the elevator vestibule at the top handing out Dramamine [Music] if a swaying skyscraper can cause motion sickness and average high wind conditions then the occupants of the petronas towers had better prepare for a wild ride reaching nearly 1500 feet the twin towers are designed to withstand the devastating winds that strike the region these swirling gusts can reach over 90 miles per hour already the world-record height of these towers has pushed modern technology to its limits each tower needs to sway almost three feet just to prevent a structural collapse but architect Cesar Pelli has a vision that will compound this problem a bridge between the two towers a structure that pally feels will be symbolic of something larger than the towers themselves the human spirit we proposed the bridge connecting the two towers in the forty and forty third floors and the bridge with its supports marks a gate a gate also to the sky Pelley's architectural vision class with the towers physical reality if each tower must sway independently how could it do so while attached to the bridge the realization of this dream will stretch both Pelley's and the engineer skills to their limits it takes over 30 hours for construction crews to lift the sky bridge into position but the real danger exists after the 900 ton passageway is locked in place [Music] what would happen if the swirling winds hit the twin towers from different angles simultaneously and they swayed in different directions the answer is frightening ly simple the bridge will snap apart plummeting over six hundred feet onto a crowded walkway below to solve this unique design problem engineers borrowed something from earthquake technology dampers critical to the sky bridges design are it's two spherical support legs 117 feet long and weighing 60 tons each in essence these two legs are enormous dampers that will help absorb the vibrations created when both buildings sway to prevent these legs from snapping off when each tower sways in opposite directions a torque reduction system is used instead of anchoring them to the bridge and towers directly the support legs are attached to a rotating plate that can twist at least 45 degrees in any direction the result the damper legs absorb the torque and sway while the bridges interior support system remains unaffected after the towers open the bridge will serve not only as a passageway between the two towers but also as an escape route in case of fires or emergencies this combination of artistic design and engineering technology allows Pelle to realize his architectural dream when I face that space between the towers I am in direct contact with a sky with a higher worth Pelle was able to implement his design for the Petronas Towers sometimes the forces that can upset plans come from the most unexpected places in Japan where cable television hasn't taken root most television signals are broadcast through the air the jr central towers as they're being built today are round in the original plan they were square however it became clear that a rectangular Tower 800 feet in the air would block transmission signals from local TV stations the result would be a phenomenon known as TV ghosting TV ghosting is a very common phenomenon if you're looking at your television set and you get two images that are that blur your reception that's called TV ghosting the architects of the junior central towers were surprised by the structural problem and forced to make a multi-million dollar design change or suffer the wrath of thousands of television viewers those curves from an aesthetic point of view they were very nice but also from a technical point what it does is it it takes a direct wave and then diverts it for a building to divert a broadcast wave the exterior can't contain any metal or reflective glass that would cause the wave to bounce back toward the transmission tower so the exterior of the junior central towers had to be made of precast concrete and ceramic tile a much heavier skin than the glass covering originally planned this extra weight on the frame of the skyscraper made it even more necessary to place a massive matte slab foundation underneath the building in the end the architects and engineers for both the jr. central towers and the Petronas Towers are able to fulfill their visions the 800-foot jr. central towers will become the tallest building in Japan providing desperately needed office and retail space to a growing metropolis and the petronas tower win the title tallest building in the world but have these engineers while building such enormous skyscrapers prepared for every disaster [Music] or is it impossible for an architect to prepare for the insanity of man [Music] designed to survive the battering of high winds and the violent shaking of earthquakes modern skyscrapers seemed indestructible but where mother nature might fail man has succeeded on February 26 1993 a nightmare becomes a reality [Music] the bombing of New York's World Trade Center uh sure Zinn a dark new reality the threat of terrorism has finally come home the blast kills six people injures over 1,000 and causes millions of dollars worth of damage but as enormous as the force of the explosion is it doesn't bring down the towers or even cause severe damage to the structure of the building you must understand that towers were designed for the impacting of the largest airplane of its time the Intercontinental 707 aircraft right into the building in designing the World Trade Towers to withstand a mid-air collision engineers learned after the bombing that they had inadvertently built a fire trap both towers actually behaved like giant chimneys and they took this air that was in his basement created by this great explosion and sucked it up into the towers and raised it up through and tried to expel it at the top somewhere among 110 stories 50,000 people are stranded in complete darkness when emergency systems fail smoke fills the towers and people become desperate for air they smash windows in a frantic search for a way out yet they're alive because the tower didn't collapse the steel cage skeleton absorbed the force of the bomb and prevented its collapse by distributing the blast shock throughout the entire frame however the inner concrete reinforced columns designed to give the towers their rigidity became the vertical conduits for the deadly fire and smoke eventually firefighters were able to release the trap smoke by smashing windows on the lower floors and cutting air holes in the roof of the towers during the ensuing investigation engineers discovered the structural design of the World Trade Center can survive a bombs blast but the building's emergency fire and sprinkler systems can't they were knocked offline allowing the spread of the fire and smoke since the current steel cage structure is essential to building a skyscraper Architects can't change this design component yet disasters like the World Trade bombing and the MGM Hotel fire of 1977 can turn skyscrapers into towering inferno s-- engineers are now challenged with developing an advanced infrastructure to ensure that the air water and fire systems can function under extreme situations once again as architects continue to design skyscrapers higher and higher engineers struggle to invent new systems to support these record Heights for the engineers of the petronas towers simply providing water to the entire building becomes their biggest obstacle over 600 pounds of pressure will be needed to pump water to the pinnacle of this skyscraper nearly 1500 feet into the sky simply attaching a faucet or sprinkler to such highly pressurized water would be like trying to drink from the end of the firefighters hose to solve this problem engineers decide to pump water to the very top of the building and then let it cascade down two pumps located in the maintenance floors below losing its pressure as it trickles down at each floor the water is then distributed throughout the tower in order to achieve this three entire floors within each tower are dedicated solely to maintenance systems located to the 7th 43rd and 81st floors these control areas handle the water air and electrical distribution for the floors attached to their zone if during a fire or explosion one of these maintenance floors is destroyed the other two can operate independently to suppress any fire and ventilate any smoke during the World Trade Center bombing once the main control area was knocked offline by the blast all emergency systems throughout the skyscraper were lost the three independent control areas in the petronas towers are designed to avoid just such a fate this decentralized plan provides a reliable means to a more comfortable environment for the tenants now you take it for granted that you're cool you'll warm there's lights on the bathrooms work and there's some very very sophisticated systems in your building pigley today these high-tech solutions to old problems have made possible the continued growth of modern skyscrapers but this technology doesn't come cheap in Nagoya Japan it will take seven years to complete the jr central towers and it's costing 1 million dollars a day to build the skyscraper but for all the money that's spent it's the skill of the high steel worker that makes off skyscrapers possible in Japan the people who work on these tall buildings are some of the most talented and dedicated workers in the world at the junior central towers the project is viewed as a team job each morning workers perform calisthenics together a detailed briefing of precisely what work needs to be completed that day follows the coordination between departments is so precise that the day's work is planned down to the minute the skill of the worker in Japan is at a very high level they devote their lives to the construction industry this dedication has paid off for the junior central towers construction is on schedule and under budget with workers completing an astonishing three floors per week elsewhere around the world the completion of one floor per week is acceptable but for the many workers on the high steel in Nagoya being average is not acceptable and their passion is spreading Japanese engineers and workers often train crews building skyscrapers along the Pacific Rim they came to kuala lumpur and the results stand before all the world to see highly skilled workers technological advances the dreams of architects these are the ingredients to build the modern skyscraper [Music] it's guided engineers to build the junior central towers 800 feet above a crowded metropolis in the heart of earthquake country and it's inspired Cesar Pelli to design and erect the tallest building in the world as a monument to a proud City but in this race to reach new and unimaginable Heights how high is high enough [Music] the drive to create the tallest skyscraper in the world has been a hundred year Odyssey sweeping engineers and architects far beyond their initial dreams this ambitious race has led Caesar Pelli and the engineers of the Petronas Towers to the forefront of modern building design the 800 million dollars invested by their builders have made the Petronas Towers the tallest building in the world they're 88 floors soar 1483 feet into the air or is it engineers of the Sears Tower say they're building still retains the title since it has 110 floors - Petronas 88 but Polly's building includes an enormous spire that tops the building off 22 feet higher than the Chicago skyscraper Sears tower's officials counter that if petronas spire is counted then the antennas on their skyscraper should be counted - which raised its height 231 feet taller than the Malaysian giant Pelle argues that his spire is integral to the design of Petronas and the Sears antennae are just that antennas but if the height to the tallest antenna is the standard then isn't New York's World Trade Center the tallest building in the world at 1758 feet [Music] this debate will become more intense very soon because in Shanghai ground is broken on the Mori Towers project when finished it will loom over this ancient Chinese city at a height of fifteen hundred nine feet taller than both Sears and Petronas in Hong Kong Manila and Tokyo the city skylines are punctuated with buildings under construction is this where the next Petronas will rise the key to taller skyscrapers is once again the elevator we took 145 storey building put all the elevators in it that we're needed by all the people and three million square feet that were to occupy that building the entire floor plate would be taken out by the elevator cord it'd be no space to rent and make money on so hey that wouldn't work right recently the otis company announced its latest creation which many believe will solve this dilemma an elevator that can move horizontally as well as vertically by providing access to more areas of a skyscraper with fewer elevators valuable rental space is opened up once a building becomes economically viable to investors how long will it take before a higher one is built and how long before another technological advancement comes along that raises tall buildings to unheard-of heights in Metropolis filmmaker fritz lang's prophesizing drama 1928 even the sky isn't insurmountable but is there a physical boundary beyond which science can never advance years ago a mile-high building with atomic powered elevators connecting over 528 floors was designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright if built a skyscraper this tall would stand over five times the height of today's tallest structures 40 years ago a mile-high building seemed a futuristic folly but is it still [Music] as technology continues to advance engineers now say a mile-high building is possible new lighter building materials are the key [Music] already ceramics are being used in the exterior walls of the junior central towers to lighten the total weight of the building and reduce the stress on the earthquake sensitive foundation the future is going to be you do not limit yourself to natural materials like steel or aluminum or may Surrey where you compose materials and you create new properties out of hybrid materials alloys or ceramics or plastics carbon fibers or mixes of all this eventually these new materials will give rise to skyscrapers taller than anyone has ever seen surpassing both the jr central towers and the petronas towers today's architectural marvels [Music] these monoliths of the future may also be closer to Lange's vision of the future not just a tower of office space but self-contained cities within a building everything is in one building you can have retail you can have hotel office apartments and you can have transportation all in one single building you can go to one location and get everything you want since their earliest beginnings skyscrapers have evoked unexplainable emotions in us from pride or to fear have they evolved to become buildings that provide the space needed for a growing population or just an exploitation of those needs a justification to build what Caesar Pelli calls a gateway to the skies I do not know if it's innate in human beings or acquire culturally but there is something magic and extraordinary or a structure grows from the ground and moves up and reaches the sky when you are up on a building you and the ground are one somehow you feel that through your body through your feet through the structure of the building you are still rooted on the ground but you are looking above all other buildings and there is just something extraordinarily satisfied I imagined the tallest oak in a forest or the tallest Sequoia must feel the same thing perhaps these monuments that we leave behind tell much of the human story itself they speak with stunning eloquence of our ambition and our brilliance but also of our frailty as they puncture the skies above our urban landscape skyscrapers also punch holes in our preconception of what's possible what was impossible yesterday now stands before us [Music] [Music]

Channel: Spark

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Keywords: building a skyscraper time lapse, building a skyscraper in new york, construction documentary 2019, construction documentary, burj khalifa, skyscraper, dubai, Spark, Science, Technology, Engineering, Learning, How To, education, documentary, factual, mind blown, construction, building, full documentary, full, Science documentary, space documentary, bbc documentary, worlds tallest building, worlds tallest building dubai, worlds tallest building 2019, worlds tallest building under construction

Id: DM_MgeHk5Cg

Length: 51min 46sec (3106 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 18 2019