World’s Biggest Tent | Megastructures | Free Documentary

[Music] it's the height of a 50-story skyscraper but its walls are full of air it's made with 188 000 tons of concrete but all you can see is plastic it contains enough steel cable to build a suspension bridge but no one will be driving across it so what is it it's a tent the world's biggest tent [Music] imagine desert island beaches las vegas entertainment turkish baths a tropical paradise just meters away from this welcome to kazakhstan and the second coldest capital city in the world minus 35 40 in the winter plus 35 40 in the summer so it's very hostile to build this space-age pleasure dome workers are battling some of the toughest conditions on the planet technically we were doing something in astana that would be difficult to do in london i mean this is this is not easy construction it's actually very challenging with work two years behind schedule they can't afford any more delays it's a very very significant project i think we may have got lulled into a false sense of security will the world's biggest tent ever be finished at a construction site in central kazakhstan the early shift is arriving for work it's bitterly cold minus 20 degrees celsius despite throwing thousands of workers onto the project construction of one of the world's most radical buildings is two years behind schedule but one man is determined to get the job back on track engineering troubleshooter salami garel works for the turkish construction company symbol when the experts talk of impossible semble calls in guerrell the pressure is just the time everybody wants his building on time but in this weather conditions it's very very difficult even in a good year winter in central kazakhstan is bone chilling and this winter has been unusually extreme when the wind starts you feel -55 it's very cool so called that for many workers it's a fine line between life and the freezing death i remember one day they said someone is frozen up there so the team went up and took him down such things happened the frozen worker survived but salami faces a far bigger problem than the kiln and that's kazakhstan's president nursal nazarbayev the president personally commissioned the building he's tired of waiting for it and has now demanded that it must be finished in time for his birthday in just 18 weeks time and in kazakhstan when the president shouts everybody jumps the new building is part of the president's vision to transform his country kazakhstan is vast at 2.7 million square kilometers is the ninth largest country in the world it perches on the great step of central asia an area of semi-desert for centuries nomadic tribes herded their cattle across these remote grasslands living in portable homes traditional tents called yurts for 71 years it was part of the soviet union but with independence in 1991 this country began an extraordinary period of rapid development the discovery of oil vast amounts of it gave kazakhstan wealth and the president knew just how he wanted to spend it he decided to build a new capital at a remote spot in the middle of the country astana he called in some of the world's leading architects and told them to jump out went the soviet monoliths in came extraordinary architectural fantasies that owed more to las vegas than to moscow new government ministries a stadium a concert hall a glass pyramid of peace each year a new architectural wonder laid out on a master plan similar to washington dc astana is now one of the fastest growing capitals in the world and the people who move here are encouraged to feel close to their president in the heart of the new city at the top of the baiterech tower newlywed couples can place their hands in a giant solid gold imprint of the president's hand and make a wish but before you book your holiday to this extraordinary place there's one thing you should know astana is the second coldest capital city in the world year round its average temperature is just three degrees celsius in winter bitter winds sweep down from siberia plunging temperatures to 40 below the city remains frozen for month after month [Music] so the president realized there was one thing missing from his new glittering metropolis [Music] a president with a radical idea needed a radical architect he was if you want something unique there are few better places to come than to norman foster's practice in london where revolutionary architecture is the name of the game as we advance as a kind of evolution as designers we are able to gradually stretch the boundaries foster has pushed the boundaries again and again with iconic structures like france's milal viaduct london's gherkin and the hearst headquarters in new york and when he was approached by the president of kazakhstan he saw an opportunity to return to a revolutionary idea he'd been thinking about for over 40 years rectilinear in the 1960s 70s and 80s foster collaborated with one of the 20th century's most brilliant minds richard buckminster fuller was an american architect who pioneered the idea of using geodesic domes to create vast self-contained environments protected from harsh conditions outside meeting with bucky was extraordinary because he was somebody who had really devoted his life to the idea of dwellings that um that would be self-sufficient dome-shaped biospheres act like giant greenhouses by trapping the sun's heat they can create a warm environment for everything inside one of bucky's most radical ideas was to cover 50 blocks of downtown new york with a dome the dome over manhattan was a very evocative project and it was really drawing attention to the uh the potential for creating large-scale enclosures creating microclimates modifying a climate bucky was and still is a mentor in that in that sense over 40 years after they first met on the steps of kazakhstan foster saw the potential to realize his mentors ideas on a massive scale and create an iconic engineering first for the president's new capital this was going to be a symbol and ideally something that had not been done before to explore exactly what sort of structure would work best foster called in civil engineering company bureau happened where senior engineer mike cook is not quite so keen on domes a dome well designed should be in pure compression and that's a pretty efficient way to use material but it still has the threat of buckling a dome is a good way to cover a large space but the weight on the roof pushes down on the supporting struts compressing them and that compression means the struts have to be thick and heavy or else they buckle astana's remote location means that construction materials will have to be shipped long distances across central asia so keeping weight to a minimum is essential and it turns out there's an even lighter way to build a roof in structures like suspension bridges the cables carrying the load are in tension because they're being pulled instead of pushed the cables can't buckle so they can be very light and if you transform a suspension bridge into a roof you get a tent a very big tent the clues in the name i suppose tend to tent for tension um and tension is is the most efficient way you can carry force in a material this is five times as efficient in terms of the ratio of the of the steel to the volume and the area enclosed so with that level of efficiency foster quickly settled on a tent for his design team led by nigel danci the challenge was to turn that simple idea into a thing of beauty once we had the idea of doing something with the mast and having the masters really a beacon that that's something that we really felt very strongly about within weeks they'd fleshed out a design for an iconic angled tent [Music] inside they devised a vast leisure complex that would fulfill the president's dream to give his people a sheltered year-round entertainment paradise laid out on six floors inside an outer concrete ring there's a vast car park on the ground floor from there you can head up to two levels of western shops designer boutiques and a cinema [Music] rising above this are two floors of entertainments a spa center restaurants arcades rides and a monorail at the top there's a tropical water park complete with a wave pool and two beaches [Music] all this under the buckminster fuller inspired energy efficient tent when it's freezing outside it will be a pleasant summer's day in here [Music] in december 2006 the president gave the design his approval and unveiled it to the world naming it han shatir which means the leaders or royal marquis the crowning glory of his new capital atastana and despite its unique and complex design he was told he would have it in just one year oh dear within days of the president officially approving the design the diggers roll in construction of the world's biggest tent begins stage one is to build the foundations and the immense concrete ring that will anchor the tent into the ground 195 000 cubic meters of soil are excavated concrete piles are sunk 10 stories deep into the earth construction crews cut bend and wire together 9 000 kilometers of steel reinforcing rods and a steady stream of lorries pour 188 000 tons of concrete into the foundations and lower floors but this is a complex project on a vast scale and it's soon apparent that the promise of building this structure in a single year really was mission impossible don't think we quite understood what we let ourselves in for it really is a very significant big project it's over a hundred thousand square meters in total area and it's 145 meters tall so it's a it's a very very significant project i think we may have got lulled into a false sense of security in november the winter weather kicks in as temperatures plunge there's a danger that the concrete will freeze before it has a chance to set [Music] so workers have to improvise using powerful burners to keep it warm as they mix it work slows to a snail's pace stage one is taking months longer than predicted and matters are about to get a whole lot worse the next stage is to build and erect the tent pole a 2 000 ton steel structure that will rise 150 meters into the air unfortunately it seems that no one can agree how they're going to do it time to bring in the troubleshooter salami gurel first design of fostering partners was a vertical mast it was something we thought about quite long and hard when something is vertical i love it the single mast would be simpler i said why don't we make it with a concrete chimney looking thing we can use slip form technologies and i could finish it in 24 days you know it wasn't something that we um dismissed immediately but it was something that was a very unusual thing to want to do it was too symmetrical then i don't know why they tilted the heads in fact the tilt is crucial to the design because the main buildings of astana are lined up on a central axis and the han shatter will mark one end of this axis the idea of tilting it started to address the fact that we wanted to create an entrance at the front addressing that axis the foster's final design called for the tent pole to be tilted at 15 degrees a single tent pole would be unstable so the engineers opted for a tripod nice three-legged storm stable building it without any further delays was a challenge that salami was determined to solve being an engineer of 58 years old i said i should do it the designers thought it could be slowly built up in sections piece by piece from the ground up using vast amounts of scaffolding salami came up with a much faster but highly unconventional alternative starting with building the whole tripod flat on the ground he had the idea that he wanted to do everything on the ground assemble everything and then lift the whole tripod with its mast uh already attached up into the sky in one one brave move that is something we probably wouldn't have wanted to propose a major concern was that salami's approach would require a vast crane far bigger than anything available in remote astana shipping one in would take months and cost a fortune but never underestimate the troubleshooter can you imagine you should rent a 800 ton crane in 30 trucks load them bring here in two months bring them back in two months so we said let us make our own crane of course it will be no ordinary crane salami's plan is to use a brilliantly inventive combination of hinges railway track and some very high-tech winches the tripod will be assembled horizontally with two legs attached to giant hinges called pin joints and one leg to a short stretch of track meanwhile salami's team will build a 60 meter tall tower on top of which he will put his specialist winches known as stran jacks the jacks will pull up the tripod on its hinges with the third leg sliding down the track into its final position it's never been done before and no one knows if it will work [Music] my mission is to fulfill i mean to satisfied foster and partners you know just to do it [Music] with another winter approaching salami's steel team must work fast specialist welders cut and weld 2 000 tons of steel tubing shipped in from turkey into three giant legs [Music] on top of the legs they're building a giant ring 20 meters in diameter this will support the cables that hold up the roof and on top of the tripod is the giant mast the whole structure is 150 meters long equivalent to a 50-story building lying on its side now the challenge is to pull it into the air concentrating all of the energy into that big event means that big event concentrates all the risk there's a very real danger of a catastrophic failure that would set the project back by months and that wouldn't go down well with the president to lift the tower 16 strand jacks will grip the cables and pull up the giant tripod 50 centimeters at a time inside each strand jack an upper chuck tightens to grip the cable a lower chuck releases its grip and a hydraulic piston pushes upwards lifting the tripod next the lower chuck tightens the upper chuck releases and the piston retracts the whole process is then repeated time after time to make sure the load is evenly distributed all the strand jacks must work in perfect synchronization as the day of the lift dawns salami's plan swings into action at the top of the lifting tower city's secret weapons the hydraulic strand jacks have been brought in from switzerland they're costing one million dollars to rent so salami's plan had better work initially everything was sitting on supports you know but once you start pulling all the forces should come to those pin joints you know well the pin joint has a base plate which is sitting on concrete foundation the concrete has to withstand forces of up to 2500 tons very very big forces so there's always that danger that some some someone missed something you know some bolt gets over stressed as the lift begins it's a critical moment can the cables take the load of the tripod we just lifted up there were thousand five hundred ton horizontal forces coming there nothing happened you know we were just airborne to stop the tower falling over as it begins to raise the tripod cables anchor it to the concrete rim of the building little by little the strand jacks inch the tripod ever higher over the next 48 hours it rises majestically into place [Music] when the whole tripod is in position the third leg is welded to its base the moment of truth arrives will the structure stand up when they release all the wires [Music] the president of kazakhstan was here that day then we released the crane you know very exciting heartbeating you know the load was transferred from the mobile crane to the structure it was a it's a great uh piece of showmanship to have that event but we did it by ignoring the conventional way of doing things salami has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars and he's got the tripod safely erected before another extreme winter sets in but by the spring the project is 16 months behind schedule with some major challenges still to come a new team of workers has arrived on task facing these specialist engineering climbers is the most dangerous part of the whole project installing the high tension cobweb of cables that will support the outer skin of the world's biggest tent it's unfair to call it a tent really you know it is a precisely engineered tension structure whatever you call it it needs a roof once again the responsibility of making sure work progresses as quickly as possible falls to salami garel we had bundles of cables 38 millimeter in diameter the longest was about 140 120 meter long shortest around 95 meter long on the back side the cables that will support the lightweight roof each weigh up to two and a half tons and have to be pulled up in pairs while pulling them there was a task to connect the the blocks that connect the double cable make it as a pair at every 70 centimeters you know getting everything exactly right is time consuming considering 190 pairs if we can make one pair daily then we need 190 days and we didn't have so much time clearly relying on a single team of expert climbers was going to put the project many more months behind schedule we should increase the number of the teams plus the the number of the lifting cable pulling devices so salami brings in nearly 300 extra workers adding another nine teams and equips them with winches stripped out of old russian cranes it's risky work for old equipment and inexperienced climbers but the job instantly picks up speed [Music] we have done let's say 10 pairs every day so we have done it within almost 20 days salami's calculated risk pays off the net of cables is quickly completed and the next crucial stage can get started tensioning to cope with the weight of snow that will fall in winter the whole roof needs to be able to move just the right amount early on in the project we made this model really simple model there is either wind during the snowfall or after the snowfall and that's going to build a heavy deposit of snow on one side and that causes this this deformation but if you allow this rocking to occur or some movement at the top it actually helps reduce the buildup of stress on this side instead of a moving mast mike cook has devised this moving hub the hub is enormous 17 meters tall and 20 in diameter but despite its huge size and weight in high winds or heavy snow loads it can move 30 centimeters from side to side a palm sweating 75 meters above the floor of the haan shatter salami's assistant is inspecting the 12 pillars on which the hub rests astonishingly these upper pillars aren't actually fixed to the tripod below they simply rest on bearings if you could pull them hard enough they would come apart luckily the thousand ton load of the roof holds them down to make sure the hub doesn't move more than 30 centimeters the entire cable net must be stretched to just the right tension that's the job of alex luca and his tensioning team working their way around the structure they attach the ends of each pair of cables to two hydraulic rams when alex turns on the hydraulic pump the rams push on a plate that pulls the cables tight [Music] the nuts are then tightened and the process repeated on the next set of cables the cables on the han shittier are tightened to an unusually high level eighty percent of their maximum load the wires will be as taut as the cables on a suspension bridge with the cable neck complete the stunning shape of the hansatir takes its place on the astana skyline inside thanks to a temporary plastic roof work on the interior can finally get started everyone's racing to play catch-up before the president's patience runs out in germany a team of designers from vector foil tech has spent over a year designing the roof of the world's biggest tent it will consist of 836 transparent plastic cushions to make life extra difficult every other cushion is a different shape and each one has to fit precisely it's a twenty thousand square meter three dimensional jigsaw puzzle it looks good on the computer screens but for vector foil tech the key to success is installing the cushions in warm weather and it would be complete madness to install their roof through an extremely cold winter their man in astana with the job of putting the jigsaw together is matt wilson an expert climber who specializes in rope access engineering so the uh the containers are shipped from beijing basically beijing fit it with this very temporary shelving uh to fit the to sit the cushions on the cushions are unique to a single location on the building and they're folded in a particular way so that they're basically ready for when they're hung up onto the structure the roof cushions are made up of thin sheets of a material called ethylene tetrafluoroethylene or etfe for short three sheets of etfe are joined together one on top of another to form each cushion air will be blown into these to form a lightweight rigid pillow [Music] this is the wonder material that makes buckminster fuller's dream of insulated biospheres possible it's 100 times lighter than glass it's surface-like teflon is non-stick so it doesn't need cleaning and etfe is tough when it's warm it stretches and can comfortably take the weight of five men [Music] it won't catch fire and it can be cut into any shape required but one thing etfe doesn't like is being installed in the cold despite this matt wilson has been instructed to waste no time replacing the temporary plastic sheets with the etfe cushions [Music] originally the cushions were going to be installed in summer but with construction so far behind schedule matt's team of climbers has been working through the winter generally we would fit the the two short sides first working from the top down which usually provides very little problem because the cushions have a great deal of distance to stretch the material becomes less elastic in the cold weather which means when we stretch the cushions into the aluminium frame we have to basically give them more time so in summer where something might take so 10 to 15 minutes through winter we may take some two or three hours through an extreme winter even by local standards matt has been under constant pressure from salami gurel we have our german subcontractors teams who are not used to working in minus 30 minus 20 minus 15. the days that are really difficult is when the ambient temperature is very cold and the wind is high we bought good close to the work for the workers the the cold is extreme at times blankets some heating units minus 37 and that's not with wind chill that was an ambient temperature the wind chill was it was off the scale on the on the meter that was reading it and most of the time then we're not able to work at all for salami matt's team was working far too slow he had to find a way to get the roof finished more quickly [Music] so what we said let us also put our teams on top of this nets the troubleshooter invoked the gurel theorem throw loads of people at the job and get it done fast in order to avoid any accidents we have decided to install a safety net inside the radial cables so that people can walk on it next the experienced climbers trained the new workers to install the cushions we have brought here our own teams which is 400 people they they've been brought in to speed up the work that gets frustrating if not a bit disconcerting 10 teams 83 cushions per team and the team starting competing with each other you know it's the worst safety you've seen on the planet [Music] despite matt's concerns the teams press on so this has to come down much further into the hooks profile on the alloy here sometimes mac can hardly bear to watch they rip a lot of the edges and then the work i'm doing in terms of calculating things at the moment is calculating a repair schedule by spring the cushions are in place but matt still fears the worst because now he must inflate the roof for the first time and it seems inevitable that installing the etfe in freezing cold will have damaged the cushions and caused dozens of leaks now we're ready to turn the supply on for the roof for the first time [Music] every cushion is attached to an air supply a computer control pumping system pumps air at low pressure around the whole tent the fans blow in 60 000 cubic meters of air equivalent to a large airship it takes about seven hours to inflate the roof [Music] for the roof to look as the architects intended all the cushions must evenly inflate to a height of exactly 70 centimeters matt is prepared for the worst but he can't quite believe what he sees well the first inflation looks like it's gone okay the uh the cushions have good pressure and um there's even distribution of air pressure throughout all the cushions uh so yeah we're looking pretty happy with it against all odds the winter installation has been a success once again salami's boldness has saved valuable months and it's up the world's biggest tent a structure unlike anything else on earth but inside the tent no one has time to celebrate it's now just six weeks until the president's birthday and the grand opening across six floors a small city is under construction dozens of painters are applying thirteen thousand liters of white paint electricians are wiring up seventeen thousand lights and teams of carpenters are frantically fitting out shops and restaurants everything must be ready the president expects guiding the installation is architect tolga oz so we got this a water park on the upper floor and in this level what where we are standing here is where the entertainment begins okay the monorail and the flume ride and there are a lot of games machines and car races for the kids we got a drop tower two uh restaurants this is the flying bus for two little children and this is actually a boat which spins around itself four thousand square meters will be full of this entertainment stuff on the entertainment floor rides engineer lucio romaro is ready to test the star attraction a high-level monorail that loops around the entire interior looks fine as a first test the complete ride it will take five minutes the people they can see all the panorama and they feel enjoy does norman foster know about all this this design solution is mindful of the of the social mix incredible range of activities from exhibitions a half a kilometer of jogging trail um it's it it's it's um it's very much a kind of welcoming uh populist building [Music] six weeks later the interior is nearly complete it's the day before the grand opening [Music] these teams of workers have almost completely transformed the han shatir from a building site into a 21st century pleasure palace thanks to the etfe roof the hanshitir's plant life is in stark contrast to the dusty steps outside [Music] hundreds of plants from all over the world will thrive in this giant greenhouse the structure is crammed full of every imaginable entertainment the tropical beaches and water park turkish baths saunas a gym and spa a cinema and two floors of rides and arcade games [Music] top name brands from around the world have bought into the concept they all want a presence inside the world's biggest tent and now hundreds of workers are in a race to get the goods into the stores in time for the opening [Music] matt wilson is on hand to make sure his roof is looking good for the opening ceremony as you can see the building by the sound of things is pretty frantic uh but uh we're confident uh that all the main construction works are obviously finished and the uh the fit out is uh almost there as well so we're confident for a great opening the design team from foster's and bureau happily has flown in from london to see the finished building for the first time it seemed much much flatter in the models you know with the snow as it comes towards you yeah [Music] wow that's incredible isn't it beautiful the size of those legs you're over designing them do you there's a lot of force in those things as they make their way up the building they begin to appreciate the sheer scale of what they have designed when you're at the bottom you really don't appreciate how big it is you've got to get up it you've got to get up because even now you look at this look up there look at that giant thing in the sky [Music] i see the train is running my children would love it here yeah pina colada i think [Laughter] i should have brought my swing trunks [Music] the water park on the top floor is enclosed within its own etfe roof over 1 000 kilometers from the sea the people of astana now have their own year-round beach quality of light it's like being honest it is like big on the beach what more could you want while the water park is maintained at tropical temperatures the rest of the interior is maintained as a pleasant temperate zone all year round thanks to some very clever design and engineering work to fulfill buckminster fuller's dream of an environmentally efficient dome the designers needed to harness nature to do a lot of the heating and cooling so how did they manage it architect filo russo from foster and partners had the job of making it work it was never meant to be a space that is is fully conditioned overall it was meant to be a shelter that you would have a barrier with the outside in summer with temperatures outside hitting 35 degrees celsius the challenge is keeping the building cool to stop it becoming a giant greenhouse the etfe on the roof is covered in hundreds of thousands of silver dots this fritting as it's called reflects some of the sun's heat but the building also uses a natural process called the stack effect it's the same as you have a chimney a fireplace at home you know you get hot air and it's gonna get sucked out at the top of the tent above the ring adjustable slats allow warm air to be released we've got openings all the way around the crown of the very top of the the tent when the wind is blowing and it's cooler as it passes through it's gonna suck the hot air through inside the building hot air which is lighter than cold rises naturally to the top of the tent at this height the wind outside blows faster than at ground level it creates suction drawing the hot air out to replace it chilled air is created at ground level air is drawn in through intakes around the building cooled and blown out through vents and nozzles inside we're not trying to condition the entire volume but just the occupied spaces so even in the hottest days of summer it's pleasant inside but what will happen when it's -40 outside in winter the roof will act like a giant transparent duvet insulating the interior from the cold siberian winds and allowing in heat from the sun you're always going to get a lot of solar radiation irrespective of the time of the year in that respect the the enclosure the volume and the material actually helps to trap heat even in the tropical pool area which is kept at a constant 30 degrees celsius no energy is wasted the excess heat that is generated in this area only around is can be recycled and mainly in the winter is used to heat up the the car park levels down at the bottom at plus five degrees so it you'll never be frozen the transformation is complete from concrete shell into leisure paradise everything is ready for the big day but before the president will allow the building to be opened he has insisted on a personal tour of inspection and he's on his way on the morning before their president's 70th birthday the people of astana stream towards the han shithear 140 000 of them but before the world's biggest tent is open to the public it must pass its presidential inspection it's a nervous time for all involved what will he think of the latest addition to his capital city [Music] so the president is happy and the doors are thrown open to the people of kazakhstan their reaction will be the best indication of whether this amazing structure will be a success the vast roof inspires wonder [Music] in the food court young kazaks are quick to get their teeth into international cuisine some have never seen the beach before london paris and milan have arrived in kazakhstan and there's no doubt that the amusements are a hit foreign to celebrate the opening of his new building the president lays on a spectacular opening ceremony ancient culture celebrates modern architecture as horse riders hunters and acrobats pay tribute to the thousands of workers who built the han shittier [Music] standing out from other buildings like a beacon in the wilderness the hanshitir is not just another shopping mall or amusement arcade it's an iconic building a statement of the president's determination that kazakhstan will be a leading player in the modern world this is the symbol of kazakhstan and astana let's say this is a symbol for [Music] astana yeah i'm definitely proud of it it's not the sort of project that comes comes along that often um it's great to be able to to make the most of that and and and it's great to have worked with a whole pile of really interesting people to get where it got i i think the fight the final building is is pretty breathtaking for norman foster the han shatir is a glorious realization of the visionary ideas of the great buckminster fuller i very much hope that he would have approved i'd like to think that he would see it as very much in the spirit of of his teachings um his philosophy as an engineering achievement this is the first step in a new direction paving the way to low energy habitats and even cities of the future [Music] you

Channel: Free Documentary

Views: 675,277

Rating: 4.8113384 out of 5

Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full documentary, HD documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), engineering, engineering documentary, constructions, construction documentary, megastructures, World’s Biggest Tent, biggest tent, big tent, giant tent, gigantic tent, space age entertainment centre, engineers at work, construction, tech documentary, technology documentary, Astana, top documentaries, mega structures

Id: 5CZzA8zMqbs

Length: 49min 16sec (2956 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 26 2020