Megastructures: Modern Architectural Marvels | Complete Series | All Episodes | FD Engineering

the height of a 50-story skyscraper but its walls are full of air it is made of 188,000 tons of concrete but all you see is plastic it contains enough steel cable to build a suspension bridge but no one will cross it so what? is? It is a tent, the largest tent in the world. Imagine the beaches of a desert island. Entertainment in Las Vegas. Turkish baths. A tropical paradise just a few meters away. Welcome to Kazakhstan and the second coldest capital in the world -3540 in winter plus 35 40 in summer. So it's very hostile to build this space-age delight.

Dome workers are fighting some of the harshest conditions on the planet. Technically we were doing something in Astana that would be difficult to do in London. I mean, this is not an easy build, it's actually very challenging. We have been working two years behind schedule, they cannot afford any further delays on a very important project and I think we may have been lulled into a false sense of security about whether the world's largest tent will be

complete

d on a construction site in the center of Kazakhstan. The early shift is arriving at work. It is terribly cold - 20 degrees Celsius even though thousands of workers have been forced to work on the project.

The construction of one of the most radical buildings in the world is two years behind schedule, but one man is determined to get back to work. Engineering problem solver Salami Gorrell works for the Turkish construction company Sembon when experts talk about an impossible appearance, which makes Gorel the pressure is just the moment when everyone wants this building on time, but in these weather conditions it is 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 to feel like -55. very good, that's what it's called, for many workers it's a thin line between life and frozen death.

I remember one day they said someone was frozen up there, so the team went up and took him down. Things like that happen. The frozen worker survived but the salami faces great danger. The problem is bigger than the cold and that is the president of Kazakhstan, nurse Sultan Nazarbayev. The president personally commissioned the building. He's tired of waiting and has now demanded it be finished in time for his birthday, just 18 weeks away, and in Kazakhstan, when the president screams. everyone jumps the new building is part of the president's vision to transform his country Kazakhstan is vast at 2.7 million square kilometers it is the ninth largest country in the world it stands on the great echelon of Central Asia a semi-desert area for centuries tribes Nomads herded their livestock across these remote grasslands living in portable houses, 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 large quantities of oil gave wealth to Kazakhstan.

The president knew exactly how he wanted to spend it. He decided to build a new capital in a remote location in the center of the country. Foreign Astana. He called some of the world's leading architects and told them to jump. The Soviet monoliths arrived. extraordinary

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fantasies that said more to Las Vegas than to Moscow new government Ministries a stadium a concert hall a glass pyramid from the year of peace a new

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marvel designed on a master plan similar to Washington DC Stana is now one of the capitals fastest growing in The world and people moving here are encouraged to feel close to their president in the heart of the new city, at the top of the Direct Buying 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 vacation to this extraordinary place, there is one thing you should know. Stana is the second coldest capital in the world all year round. Its average temperature is only three degrees Celsius in winter. The best winds blow from Siberia, causing temperatures to drop to 40 degrees below zero. The city remains frozen for months after months, so the president realized something was missing from his shiny new metropolis and had a vision: a president with a radical idea needed a radical architect: if you want something unique, there are some places better to come than to Norman Foster's practice in London where revolutionary architecture is the name of the game as we move forward as a kind of evolution as designers we can gradually push the boundaries, push the boundaries again and again with iconic structures like the gherkin of London's Francis Miller Viaduct. and Hearst's headquarters in New York and when approached by the president of Kazakhstan he saw an opportunity to return to a revolutionary idea he had been thinking about for more than 40 years in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

Foster collaborated with one of the 20 Greatest Minds of the Century Richard Buckminster Fuller was an American architect who pioneered the idea of ​​using geodesic domes to create vast self-contained environments protected from harsh outdoor conditions. Meeting Bucky was extraordinary because he was someone who had truly dedicated his life to the idea of ​​homes that would be self-sufficient. Dome-shaped biospheres act like giant greenhouses by trapping the sun's heat and can create a warm environment for everything inside. Bucky's most radical ideas were to cover 50 blocks of downtown New York with a dome. The Dome over Manhattan was a very evocative project and really drew attention to the potential to create large-scale enclosures that created climate-modifying microscalers.

Bucky was and remains a mentor in that sense more than 40 years after they first met in the Kazakhstan Steps Foster saw the potential to bring his mentor's ideas to life on a large scale and create iconic

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first for the new capital of the president. This was going to be symbolic and ideally something that hadn't been done before to explore exactly what type of structure would work best. Foster called the civil

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firm Bureau. It turns out that senior engineer Mike Cook is not so interested in domes. A well-designed dome should be in pure compression and that is a fairly efficient way to use the material, but there is still 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 support struts compressing them and that compression means the struts have to be thick and heavy or else they will buckle. Astana's remote location means that building materials will have to be shipped long distances across Central Asia, so keeping weight to a minimum is essential and it turns out there is an even lighter way to build a roof on structures like suspension bridges, the cables that carry the load are in tension because they are being pulled instead of pushed the cables cannot be fastened so they can be very light let's form a suspension bridge on a roof you will get a tent a very large tent the clues in the name I guess the tent for tension and tension is the most efficient way you can carry internal material Force, this is five times more efficient in terms of the ratio of steel to volume and closed area , so with that level of efficiency, Foster quickly decided on a tent for his design team led by Nigel Dansey, the challenge was to turn that simple idea into something beautiful, once we had the idea to make something with the Mast and having a teacher really like a beacon, that's something we really felt very strongly about in a matter of weeks, they developed a design for an iconic.

Tent angled inside they envisioned a vast entertainment complex that would fulfill the president's dream of providing his people with a sheltered entertainment haven all year round. Paradise distributed over six floors inside and outside a concrete ring. There is a large parking lot on the ground floor from there you can go. up to two levels of Western shops, designer boutiques and a Rising Above cinema These are two floors of entertainment, a spa centre, restaurants, galleries, attractions and a monorail At the top there is a tropical water park

complete

with a wave pool and two beaches, all under Buckminster.

Energy efficient tent inspired by Fuller when it is very cold outside it will be a nice summer day here in December 2006, the president gave his approval to the design and revealed it to the world by naming it Han shatir, which means the leaders or Royal Marquee, the crowning glory of his new capital in Astana and, despite its unique and complex design, he was told he would have it in just one year, my goodness, within days of the president officially approving the design, the diggers are rolling in the construction of the largest tent in the world. The first stage is to build the foundations and the immense concrete ring that will anchor the store to the ground. 195,000 cubic meters of soil are excavated.

Concrete piles are sunk 10 stories deep into the earthen construction. Crews cut, bend and wire nine thousand kilometers of steel reinforcing rods. The constant flow of Lori's poor 188,000 tons of concrete into the foundation and lower floors, but this is a complex, large-scale project and it soon becomes apparent that the promise of building this structure in a single year really was mission impossible. . I don't think we fully understood it. What we really got into is a very significant large project, it has over a hundred thousand square meters of total area and 145 meters high, so it is a very, very important project and I think we may have gotten carried away.

Out of a false sense of security as November sets in as winter weather sets in as temperatures drop, there is a danger that the concrete will freeze before it can be sanded, so workers have to improvise by using powerful burners to keep it warm while they do it. they mix. Work slows to a snail's pace. The first stage is taking months longer than expected. Things are about to get a lot worse. The next stage is to build and erect the two thousand tonne steel structure of the tent pole which will rise 150 meters into the air. Unfortunately, it seems no one can agree on how. they're going to do it, it's time to bring in the problem solver salami girl the first design by Foster and his partners was a vertical mast, it was something we thought about for quite a while and a lot when something is vertical, I love it, the simple mast would be Simpler, I said, why don't we do it with a concrete chimney?

We can use slip molding technologies and I was able to finish it in 24 days. You know, it wasn't something we immediately ruled out, but it was something very unusual. I want to do it was too symmetrical, so I don't know why they tilted their heads. In fact, the tilt is crucial to the design because Astana's main buildings are aligned on a central axis that will mark one end of this axis. Tilting it began to address the fact that we wanted to create an entry in the front that addressed its axles. 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 nice tripod. Three-Legged Stable Building it without further delay was a challenge that Salami was determined to solve as a 58-year-old engineer. I said he should do it. The designers thought it could be built slowly in sections, piece by piece from the ground. Using large quantities of salami scaffolding he came up with a much faster but very unconventional alternative, starting with building the entire tripod on the ground. He had the idea that he wanted to do everything on the ground, assemble everything and then raise the whole tripod with the mast from it.

He was already connected to heaven in one brave move, something we probably wouldn't have wanted to propose. A major concern was that the salami approach would require a massive crane much larger than anything available in remote Astana. Shipping at once would take months and cost a fortune, but never underestimate the problem solver. Can you imagine you should rent an 800 pound crane on 30 trucks, load them, bring them here in two months, bring them back in two months, so we said, let's make our own crane, of course, it won't be an ordinary thing. 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. A leg to a short stretch of track in the meantime, Salami's team will build. a 60 meter high tower on top of which he will place his specialized winches known as wire jacks. The jacks will lift the tripod on its hinges and the third leg will slide along the track to its final position. It's never been done before. Nobody knows if. it will workmy mission is to fulfill I mean, I'm too satisfied Foster and his partners just to do it with another winter approaching salami steel team must work fast specialized welders cut and weld 2,000 tons of steel tubes sent to him from Turkey on three giant legs At the top of the legs they are building a giant ring of 20 meters in diameter, this will support the cables that support the roof and on top of the tripod is the giant mast.

The entire structure is 150 meters long, equivalent to a 50-story building lying on your side now the challenge is to throw it into the air concentrating all the energy on that big event means that the big event concentrates all the risk there is a very real danger of a catastrophic failure that would delay the project for months that come well with the Press the present to raise the tower. The 16-wire jacks will grab the cables and lift the giant tripod 20 inches at a time into each wire. Jack an upper chuck squeezes to grip the cable a lower chuck releases its grip and a hydraulic piston pushes up lifting the tripod, the lower chuck squeezes the upper chuck releases and the piston retracts, the whole process repeats over and over again to ensure the load is distributed evenly. all Strand Jacks must work in perfect synchronization on the day of the left salami.

The dawn plan changes. action the top of the uprising the secret weapons of Tower City the hydraulic thread The cats have been brought in from Switzerland they are costing one million dollars to rent, so the salami plan had better work initially, everything was supported on supports, since you know, but once you start pulling, all the forces should go to those pin joints, you know well, the pin joint has a base plate that sits on a concrete base, the concrete. It has to withstand forces of up to 2500 tons, very, very large forces, so there is always the danger that someone has missed something, you know, some bolt is overstressed when the lift begins, it is a critical moment and the cables They support the load of the tripod. lift it up, there were fifteen hundred tons of horizontal forces coming there, nothing happened you know, we were just in the air to keep the Tower from falling as it begins to rise, the tripod cables anchor it to the concrete edge of the building little by little. bit.

The jacks advance the tripod higher and higher. It rises majestically into place. The entire tripod is in position. The third leg is welded to its base. The moment of truth arrives. Will the structure rise when all the cables are released? the president of Kazakhstan was here that day crane very exciting heart you know the load was transferred from the mobile crane to the structure it was a great piece of spectacle 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 managed to set up the tripod safely before another extreme winter hit, but by spring the project is 16 months behind schedule and there are still some left. important challenges ahead.

The workers have arrived at the scene. The task faced by these specialized climbing engineers is the most dangerous part of the entire project. the web of high tension cables that will support the outer skin of the world's largest tent, so it is unfair to call it a tent, you really know that it is a precisely designed tension structure, whatever you call it, needs a roof, once again, the responsibility of ensuring the work progresses as quickly as possible Falls on the salami girl we had bundles of cables 38 millimeters in diameter, the longest was approximately 140 120 meters long, the shortest, about 95 meters long at the rear, the cables that will support a light roof each weigh up to two and a half tons and have to be lifted in pairs while being pulled, there was a task to connect the blocks that connect the double cable, Do it like a pair every 70 centimeters.

You know, doing everything exactly right takes a long time considering 190 pairs if we can make one pair a day then we need 190 days and we didn't have that much time. Clearly, depending on a single team of expert climbers we were going to delay the project many more months behind schedule. We should increase the number of equipment plus the number of lifting cable pulling devices, so salami brings almost 300 additional workers, adds another nine teams and equips them with winches taken from old Russian cranes. It's risky work for old equipment and inexperienced climbers, but the work speeds up instantly, we've done it.

Let's say 10 pairs each day, so we've done it in almost 20 days. The calculated risk of salami pays off. The cable network is quickly completed and the next crucial stage can begin, straining the weight of the snow that will fall in winter. All the roof needs To be able to move just the right amount at the beginning of the project, we made this really simple model: there's wind during the snowfall or after the snowfall and that's going to create a big deposit of snow on one side and that causes this. smear, but if you allow this sway or some movement to occur at the top, it actually helps reduce the buildup of tension on this side rather than a moving neck.

Mike Cook has designed this mobile center. The center is enormous, measuring 17 meters high and 20 meters in diameter, but despite its enormous size and weight in strong winds or heavy snow loads, it can move 30 centimeters from side to side. The palm sweats 75 meters above the ground of the salami hanshateer. The salami attendant inspects the 12 pillars on which the Hub rests. Surprisingly, these top pillars are not actually attached to the tripod below, they simply rest on bearings. If you could pull them hard enough, they would separate. Fortunately, the thousand-tonne load of the roof holds them down to ensure that the cube does not move more than 30 centimeters along the entire cable.

The net must be stretched to the correct tension, that is the job of Alex Luca and his tensioning team. They attach the ends of each pair of cables to two hydraulic rams. When Alex turns on the hydraulic pump, the rams push a plate that pulls on the cables. tight, then the nuts are tightened and the process is repeated on the next set of cables, the cables in the hardit here are tightened to an unusually high level, eighty percent of their maximum load, the cables will be as stored as the cables on the suspension bridge with the cable network completes the impressive shape of the hardest level takes its place inside the Astana Skyline thanks to a temporary plastic roof the work inside can finally begin everyone's race to catch up Before the president's patience in Germany runs out, a team of Vector foil tag designers have spent more than a year designing the roof of the world's largest tent.

It will consist of 836 transparent plastic cushions to make life even more difficult. Every other cushion has a different shape and each one has to fit precisely. It has 20,000 squares. Three-dimensional meter puzzle looks good on computer screens, but for Vector foil Tech the key to success is installing the cushions in a warm climate and it would be complete madness to install your roof during an extremely cold winter. Your man in Astana with the The job of putting the puzzle together is Matt Wilson, an expert climber who specializes in rope access engineering, so the containers are shipped from Beijing, basically, Beijing fits it with this very temporary shelving, to place the cushions on the cushions, which are exclusive to one place in the building and are folded in a particular way so that they are basically ready for when they are hung from the structure.

Roof cushions are made from thin sheets of a material called ethylene tetrafluoroethylene or etfe. Three short sheets of etfe are joined together, one on top of the other to form each cushion. Air will be blown into them to form a stiff, light pillow. This is the wonderful material that makes Buckminster Fuller's dream of an isolated biosphere possible. It is 100 times lighter than glass. Its surface, like that of Teflon, is non-stick, so it does not need cleaning and is resistant in hot weather, stretches and can comfortably support the weight of five men, does not catch fire and can be cut into any shape required except one. .

What Etfe doesn't like is being installed in the cold despite this. Matt Wilson was instructed not to waste time replacing the temporary plastic sheets with the Etfe cushions. The cushions were originally going to be installed in the summer, but construction is long behind schedule. Matt's climbing team has been working all winter. Generally we would attach the two short sides first, working from top to bottom, which usually causes very few problems because the cushions have a long distance to stretch, the material becomes less elastic in cold weather. which means that when we stretch the cushions on the aluminum frame we basically have to give them more time, so in summer, where something can take 10 to 15 minutes in winter, we can take two or three hours in an extreme winter, even for local standards.

He has been under constant pressure from Salami Girl. We have our teams of German subcontractors who are not used to working in -30 minus 20 minus 15. The tires that are really difficult are when the ambient temperature is very cold and the wind is strong, we buy good ones. close to work for the workers, the cold is extreme, sometimes it covers some heating units minus 37 and that is not with wind chill, which was a room temperature, the wind chill was off the scale on the uh on the meter that I was reading it. and most of the time we can't work at all for salami.

Matt's team was working too slowly. He had to find a way to finish the roof faster, so what we said allowed us to put our teams on top as well. This net ball launcher invoked the girl theorem there are a lot of people at work and they do it fast to avoid accidents we have decided to install a safety net inside the radial cables so that people can walk on it the experienced climbers trained the new workers to install the cushions we have brought here our own teams, which are 400 people, have been hired to speed up the work, which is frustrating, if not a little disconcerting, with the foreigners for the team and the team starting to compete. each other they know it's the worst security they've seen on the planet even though Matt is worried about the teams pushing so this has to go much lower on the alloy hooked profile here sometimes Mac can't get a better look at how they tear off a lot of the edges and then the work I'm doing in terms of estimating things right now is figuring out a repair schedule for the spring, the cushions are in place, but Matt still fears the worst because Now you have to inflate the roof for the first time and it seems inevitable.

Installing the ETFE in a freezing location will have damaged the cushions and caused dozens of leaks. We are now ready to open the roof supply for the first time to an air supply. A computer-controlled pumping system pumps low-pressure air. throughout the store the fans blow 60,000 cubic meters of air, the equivalent of a large blimp, it takes about seven hours to inflate the roof so that it has the look the architects intended all the cushions must be inflated evenly to a height of exactly 70 centimeters mate is prepared for the worst he can't believe what he sees well, the first inflation seems to have gone well, the cushions have good pressure and there is an even distribution of air pressure in all the cushions, so yes, we look pretty happy with it.

Against All Odds the winter installation has been a success once again the salami's audacity has saved valuable months and it is in the largest tent in the world, a structure like no other on Earth, but inside the tent no one has time to celebrate, we are now just six weeks away from the president's birthday. and the grand opening in six floors a small city under construction dozens of painters are applying 13,000 liters of white paint electricians are wiring seventeen thousand lights and teams of carpenters are frantically fitting out shops and restaurants everything must be ready the president hopes to guide The installation is by architect Tolga Oz, so we got this water park on the top floor and on this level with various standing equipment is where the entertainment begins.

Well, the monorail and The Flume, and there are plenty of arcade machines and car races for it. Kids, we have a drop tower, two restaurants, this is the flying bus for two little kids, and it's actually a boat that spins on itself. Four thousand square meters will be full of entertainment things on the entertainment floor. Attractions engineer Lucio Romaro is ready to try. The star attraction, a high-level monorail that runs throughout the interior, looks good as your first test of the route.complete it will take five minutes people can see the whole panorama and that's why they feel enjoyed Does Norman Foster know about all this this design? the solution takes into account the social mix incredible variety of activities, from exhibitions half a kilometer of running trail um, it's, it's, it's, it's some kind of cozy populist building six weeks later, the interior is almost finished, it's the day before the grand opening these teams of workers have almost completely transformed the Han shatir from a construction site to a 21st century pleasure palace thanks to the etfe roof the plant life of the hansheteers contrasts sharply with the dusty steps outside hundreds of plants of Everyone will thrive in this giant greenhouse The structure is packed with every type of entertainment imaginable Tropical beaches and water park Turkish baths Saunas A gym and spa A cinema and two floors of attractions and arcade games Renowned brands from around the world have The concept has been accepted, everyone wants to have a presence inside the largest tent in the world and now hundreds of workers are in a race to get the products to the stores in time for the opening.

Matt Wilson is on hand to make sure his roof looks good for the opening ceremony. We can see the building by the sound of things, it's quite hectic, but we are sure that all the main construction work is obviously finished and the fit-out is almost ready too, so we are sure that the design will be a grand opening . The Fosters and Bureau Apple team have flown in from London to see the finished building for the first time, complimenting the models, you know, with the snowflakes - yes, foreigner, that's amazing, isn't it beautiful? Yes, with those legs, you are ready to sign them.

There is a lot of strength in those people as they go up the building, they start to appreciate the magnitude of what they have designed, when you are at the bottom you don't really appreciate how big you have. to get to the office we have to get up because even now you look at this, look up there, I know, look at that giant thing in this sky, I see the train is running, my children would love to be here, pina colada, I think the trunks They swing in the water. The park on the top floor is surrounded by its own etfe roof more than 1,000 kilometers from the sea.

The people of Astana now have their own beach all year round. The quality of light is like being honest. It's like being on the beach. What more could you want? While the water park is kept 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 that designers needed to take advantage of nature. do a lot of the heating and cooling, so how did they handle it? Architect Filo Russo of Foster and his partners were tasked with making it work.

It was never meant to be a space that is fully conditioned overall. It was meant to be a shelter. would have a barrier to the outside in summer, with temperatures outside reaching 35 degrees Celsius, the challenge is to keep the building cool to prevent it from becoming a giant greenhouse. The etfe on the ceiling is covered in hundreds of thousands of silver dots. from the sun's heat, but the building also uses a natural process called the chimney effect. It's the same as having a fireplace at home, you know you're getting hot air and it's going to be sucked into the top of the tent, above the ring.

Adjustable slats allow hot air to be released. We have openings around the crown of the top of the tent. When the wind blows and gets colder as it passes, it will draw warm air through the interior of the building. The air is lighter than the cold. It rises naturally to the top of the tent. At this height, the wind outside blows faster than at ground level. It creates suction that draws in hot air to replace it. Cold is created at ground level. Air enters through intakes. around the building, cooled and blown through vents and nozzles, the interior conditions the entire volume, but only the occupied spaces, so even on the hottest summer days it is pleasant inside, but what will happen when it does - 40 outside in winter?

The roof will act like a giant. Transparent duvet that insulates the interior from the cold Siberian winds and allows the sun's heat to enter. You will always receive a lot of solar radiation, regardless of the time of year. In that sense, the volume and material of the enclosure really helps trap heat even in the tropical pool area, which is kept at a constant temperature of 30 degrees Celsius. No energy is wasted. The excess heat generated in this area can only be recycled and, mainly in winter, is used to heat the parking lot. The levels at the bottom are five degrees higher so you never freeze.

The transformation is complete: a concrete structure in Leisure Paradise. Everything is ready for the big day, but before the president allows the building to open, he has insisted on a personal visit. inspection tour is underway the morning before their president's 70th birthday Astana residents headed to the hard here 140,000 of them for the world's largest tent is open to the public must pass presidential inspection it's a nervous time for everyone involved what you will think of the latest addition to your foreign capital, so the president has his doors open to the people of Kazakhstan, your reaction will be the best indication of whether this amazing structure will be a success the vast spired roof Wonderful food The young people Court Kazakhs quickly become interested in international cuisine.

Some have never seen the beach before in London. Paris and Milan have arrived in Kazakhstan and there is no doubt that the entertainment is a success. A foreigner to celebrate the inauguration of the new building he, the president puts. A spectacular opening ceremony celebrates

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architecture as horsemen, hunters and acrobats pay tribute to the thousands of workers who built the hardships here. Foreigners are like a beacon in nature. La hardita is not just another shopping center or arcade. It is an iconic building. statement of the president's determination that Kazakhstan will be a leading player in the

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world this is the symbol of Kazakhstan and Astana let's say this is a symbol of Astana yes, I am definitely proud of it, it is not the kind of project that arises that It's often great to be able to make the most of that and it's great to have worked with a whole bunch of really interesting people to get to God.

I think the fight for the final building is quite impressive for Norman Foster, the Han shatir is a glorious realization of the visionary ideas of the great Buckminster Fuller. I very much hope he would have approved it. I would like to think that he would see it very much in the spirit of his teachings and 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 in one of Europe's busiest ports, workers are fighting to build a concert hall to rival the best in the world, but the work is not possible.

We are not going to plan the building seven years late. Well, frankly, it's a huge disaster, 10 times over budget. Basically, we knew that failures are not allowed and that they threaten to destroy everyone's reputation if others are not right. We have to do it. It is an ambitious project. Build a unique 18-story building on top of an old warehouse to create perfect acoustics. In one of the noisiest places on Earth, some of the world's best architects and engineers are using ingenious solutions. A model the size of a small house. 150,000 tons of concrete and thousands of custom-made components can create the world's largest concert hall against all odds Hamburg is Germany's second largest city but is relatively unknown around the world is part of the development of its former port Hamburg plans to celebrate its musical heritage with an iconic structure the city that gave birth to Brahms Mendelson and even launched the Beatles once a world-class concert hall to put it on the map situated on the banks of the Elbe River the elm philharmonic will be a tall 26 floors, which will make it the tallest building in the city and a symbol of Hamburg.

Its history began in 2001 when real estate developer Alexander Girard saw the opportunity to develop a disused warehouse from the 60s on the old docks of Hamburg. Hamburg. Well, it was pretty much what you see now: it was a building with very few windows for ventilation and then there were these balconies that you could drop down so you could bring the goods inside. We didn't want the building to be torn down, so we had to find a use that would mean no natural light if we wanted to preserve it. the façade Gerard knew a type of building that did not need windows.

We as concertgoers knew that Hamburg had lost two great concert halls during the Second World War. Hamburg lacked a significant part of its musical infrastructure and this led to the proposal to build a new concert hall. Gerard traveled to Basel in Switzerland to present the idea to architects Jack Herzog and Pierre Dimura, famous for designing the Tate Modern in London. and the Birds Nest stadium at the Olympic Games in Beijing, but they would be some of the most innovative architects in the world. world is risking its reputation on rebuilding an Old Brick box we said yes, we would love to do this people we have never done a concert delighted they were interested Gerard took them to see The Brick Warehouse and Jack, he and I were standing On the roof of this building, what they saw was a fantastic location with 360-degree views of the city, the perfect location for an iconic building.

The original idea was for the concert halls to be inside the oil structure and grow out of it, but the architects had something very different in mind, they sort of sketched out what it might look like with this quick sketch. Gerard's idea was literally backwards. His beloved brick warehouse was about to become a pedestal instead of building the concert hall inside the warehouse. Herzog and Demuron. would build it on top the concept is radical Upon entering the building, visitors will climb Europe's longest curved escalator to a panoramic rooftop. The terrace on top of the warehouse will be the centerpiece of the building.

The main concert hall with steep terraces can accommodate 2,100 people. Around it will be built 45 apartments, shops, restaurants and a luxury hotel, all enveloped by gleaming glass walls that rise towards the peaks like waves when Herzog and Demuron revealed their designs to the citizens of Hamburg in June 2003. they created a sensation that people really loved. and it was published in the newspapers and there was a movement from the bottom up and not from the top down bottom up we want the Hamburg City Senate in December 2003 to vote unanimously to go ahead with a project in April 2007 after Four years of construction planning begins but costs are already rising from an initial estimate of 77 million euros to 272 million or around $360 million.

Having an innovative design and a spectacular location is not enough to be the largest concert hall in the world, it cannot simply look the best, it will have to sound the best too and for that they needed one of the best acoustic designers in the world. We invite acoustic engineers from all over the world. Americans, British, Australians, Japanese in California, approached the man who had recently completed the acclaimed Walt of Los Angeles. Disney Concert Hall a man excited to work with some of the most adventurous architects in the world. He is a Toyota. The architect's design is quite unique, very, very exciting the first time we see this kind of unique design, so it is very, very challenging here.

But it was not only the architect's ambitious designs that posed a challenge for Toyota, but also the building's overseas location, with the bustling city center on one side and Germany's busiest port on the other. Nine thousand ships transport more than 130 million tons of cargo and half a million passengers through these docks each year. The ship horns are the biggest problem. Their low-frequency sound can be heard more than four kilometers away and can penetrate even very thick concrete today Mr. Toyota will find out first hand what he is up against wow it's your first time on the bridge yes yes sure you can see your descender yes so you have to pull the handle only in this direction oh and then you start oh very simple, yes, of course, okay, don't be shy, very easy if like we can go out, we can feel the difference between here, okay, come in outside to get the full effect.

Mr. Toyota needs to stand directly in front of the horn, if he is ready, he can do itnow. Wow, this is loud, the sound is different, yes. Yes, but actually this is a very, very good experience for me, yes, yes. Mr. Toyota's problem is that even if they build the concert hall with very thick walls, the low-frequency sound will vibrate the concrete and be transmitted inside from outside on an unprecedented scale. is to build not just one large concrete concert hall, but two, one inside the other in a double wall. Constructing the exterior wall of concrete can reduce the sound of foghorns enough that they become too weak to penetrate the interior wall, ensuring that the concert hall remains isolated.

From the outside it sounds great in theory and many would say that attempting this classic soundproofing trick on such a large scale is almost impossible. June 2010, the work on the outer concrete layer of the elf Hill Harmony concert hall is almost completed, and the construction of the inner layer is fine. In place, bolted to the interior structure, an array of steel beams will support the stage and seating areas. A constant stream of trucks deliver concrete to the site. Giant cranes winch 100 meters above the ground so workers can pour it into molds filled with steel rebar. To construct the walls to complete the building, including the 2,100-seat concert hall, 244-room hotel and 45 apartments, 63,000 cubic meters of concrete weighing about 150,000 tons and 18,000 tons of steel will be needed.

Its ambitious and unique design is proving to be a lot. More complicated to build than expected, the geometry of the room is already very complex and now it must be created like a second skin, almost an egg within an egg. It's becoming clear that the original Target will open the concert venue before the end of the year. When he meets with the acoustic designer, Mr. Toyota wants to check the progress, in particular, on a specific feature of his design on which the success of his entire plan depends, with all its steel and concrete, the concert hall will weigh 12,500 pounds. tons and can't just float in the air, it has to be supported somehow, but solid legs would transmit sound vibrations to the concert hall, so instead of legs they have decided to use giant springs.

The architect's project manager, Nick Lyons, is overseeing construction. At this moment we are between the inner skin and the outer skin of the concert hall, the acoustic concept was to separate a concert hall from the rest of the building. The springs are responsible for isolating the inner concrete skin from the outer concrete skin. The giant springs between the two walls must absorb any sound vibrations. Here you can see one of the spring packs, the bottom part attached firmly to the outer skin, the top part attached firmly to the inner skin and in the middle, behind this flap, you can see the actual springs inside it will take 362 springs each 30 centimeters long to support the weight of the hole.

Mr. Toyota hopes this will create a perfectly soundproof concert hole, but in the process they have created a serious headache for the project's structural engineers with all this added weight. The new building will weigh a staggering 200,000 tons, which is the weight of two and a half large cruise ships, and most of that weight will be supported by an old brick warehouse, so, keeping only the façade, they had to demolish the interior of the building and rebuild it. Massive new concrete pillars spanning the structure provide weight support over a giant spiral ramp that provides vehicle access.

The interior space originally planned for the concert hall has been converted into a seven-story parking lot. We no longer stock cocoa or coffee, but we stock cars with the soundproofing challenge solved Mr Toyota can get on with the job of making this the best-sounding concert hall in the world, a notoriously difficult problem in which many majors Designers of the past got it badly wrong when the New York Philharmonic opened in 1962. Critics criticized the cost of improving its acoustics: four million dollars when San Francisco's Davie Symphony Hall opened in 1980 and was also a critical failure. Its acoustics cost $10 million to upgrade and there have been many other concert halls filled with poor acoustics that cost millions.

The stakes are high, as Hertzog into Muron, Muron's chief architect, Askan Mergantyler, knows. Well, we were very worried from the first moment. You know what I mean, we basically knew that no failures are allowed. You know it has to work. The safest option for The Architects would be to copy the design of some of the best in the world. The concert halls abroad, these classical venues are all rectangular, a shape popularly known as a shoe box, so you have the orchestra on the stage in front like this, it's like the two of us are looking at each other, but Herzog and Demuron They are not known for playing safely.

They want their audience to have a more immersive experience, so we try to draw inspiration from other places, also especially in stadiums, where we always admire the proximity of the spectator to the field, so having the orchestra, the podium, the stage in the center and the listeners around him, in addition to building the concert hall in the middle of Germany's busiest port, Mr. Toyota knows that a shoebox shape that everyone knows will work is not an option, he has to do make this round concert hall sound better The world is just as good it has a sense of humor if the sun wasn't right then they're probably uh we have to do it.

Hello Kitty stadiums are not known for their classical music acoustics, so stadium like the Elb Philharmonic will need some clever design to achieve just the right amount of echoes known to acoustic designers as reverb. Jeff Alpert is an American percussionist who lives in Hamburg to demonstrate how important reverb is today he will play his vibraphone in two very different places wow it was completely dead here there is absolutely no reverb so we'll see how the vibraphone sounds here. This is an anechoic chamber. A room without reverberation. The walls and even the floor are carefully designed to absorb sound waves.

There really is absolutely no echo and that's quite a bit. It's strange, even when you speak, you don't even hear any kind of echo coming from your voice. I don't think any musician would like to play in a room like this for a long time for musicians, it's a very important part of playing. It is being able to listen and in a room like this I think it would be very difficult to hear each other. Good acoustics bring warmth to the music and in a room like this you don't get that at all to demonstrate to the other.

Extreme Jeff installs his vibraphone in the largest church of Saint Michaelis in Hamburg, in a large space with hard walls. The sound behaves in a completely different way when Alpert plays a note on his vibraphone, it sends sound in all directions with the hard surfaces of the church, the sound continues. bounces from wall to wall for several seconds strange you can hear you have about three or four seconds where it echoes comparing the sounds of the church with the anechoic chamber it is easy to hear the difference if there is too much reverberation the sound can become mushy as an individual The notes blend together with the repetitions of the notes I just played in the perfect concert hall.

I think there would have to be something right in the middle and that would also mean that the reverb is not too long like here, but it has to be a lot. more than it would be in Anna Coke's chamber to create the ideal concert hall reverb. The architects must work closely with the acoustic designer, Mr. Toyota, to perfect the size and shape of the walls and the materials used on each surface we work with. The monitors are absolutely crucial and they are real working models, you know, they are not presentation models. Yeah, I would say maybe we create it in more than 100 models using the models.

Architects perfect the design and shapes of the walls. Yeah, so this is it. an important cardboard model for us because it already has more or less the final shape. You know, this is basically where we are now. This type of concert hall is known as vineyard style, as the seating arrangement resembles the terraces of a sloping hall. Vineyard its complex arrangement of balconies and walls is essential to creating good acoustics one of the keys to good sound is what acoustic engineers call Early reflections when a musician plays a note the sound travels directly to each member of the audience but a good room concert It must also reflect sound from a nearby surface so that the listener receives it between 10 and 80 milliseconds after the direct sound.

The first Reflections enrich the music for The Listener in the world's largest concert hall. Every seat in the house should receive these first Reflections so that you can see here the straight lines and they are very important for the first Reflections within the space and in fact you even need to introduce a middle wall here because that distance from the back wall here would be too much. far from the real Orchestra they have. I tested the shape with computer simulations to show the acoustics. It works in theory, but there's only one way to really verify it.

Build it into a 1:10 scale model. This model took six months to build. Every detail is precise, even the little felt hats on the 2100. Model people absorb sound similar to hair and one of the most important purposes of this and a tensile model and with the real sound is to detect harmful echoes to find echoes unwanted that can ruin a concert. Toyota and his team play sounds. Through a 12-sided speaker on stage, small microphones placed among the audience pick up the sound and send it to recording devices. Weeks of testing reveal a problem. The concert hall has an unwanted echo.

It is clearly shown in the displayed audio waveform. the echo and then this comes from the seats, a delayed echo was heard separately from the direct sound, we have to find the path for each echo, uh, to solve the problem by changing the angle, changing the material, a small change. to the model roof solves the problem, we finally remove the harmful logs here. Mr. Toyota has done everything possible to create perfect acoustics in this round design, but he won't find out if he's achieved it until opening night and that's starting to show. As if it's a long wait as summer turns to fall, progress slows at the Elm Philharmonic construction site.

Work is underway on the glass façade high above the River Alba. Construction workers must install 1,098 individually designed glass panels, each costing on average around 20,000 euros, but assembling them is proving to be a nightmare today we have to assemble six elements we have to assemble it on the 26th floor so today is a little complicated because we have normal weather for Hamburg it is raining it is very windy this balcony unit weighs over a ton its large surface area means that the wind could easily blow it out of control if the wind reaches 40 kilometers per hour installing the glass becomes too dangerous and work must stop like this despite the wind today the team is on target we fix six elements a day or we have now fixed four elements today is a situation now it is good in the same way Architects strive to give their concert hall the perfect acoustics they also seek Perfection for the building's façade panel is printed with a pattern of opaque dots for decoration and temperature control the residential part of the building where you can see these types of cutouts in the glass, they are like this type of cabins where you can go out to the outside spaces behind so that the residents themselves can understand the environment and the sense of smell, sound, etc., each unit has its own unique design that contributes to the overall appearance that the architects wanted achieve.

Strange liquid, Reflections, etc., the building skin is now becoming much more interesting. a water surface but a water surface has a texture, suddenly we created this very vivid skin, but the huge glass walls gave the architects an unusual problem. Normal glass could reflect radar signals from ships creating the impression of ghost ships in the port, the main problem of building such a large and I would say dominant glass element or glass building in the port area, especially where ships come and go all the time, it's the fact that you have to avoid any radar. The reflections of the glass in the sand make the crew of a ship think.

Your ship was on a collision course with another ship, the solution was to make the glass visible to radar with reflective chrome microdots embedded in the pattern, and special chrome mirror dots on theglass were placed so that the radars from the large ships that actually enter the port of Hamburg will not have a kind of doubling effect on their signals. Each stage of construction is closely monitored by the architects and their next big challenge is the top of the building, the design requires seven vast. The thousand-square-meter roof will be covered with undulating peaks and valleys that reflect its maritime location, but to build it around a thousand steel beams must be curved precisely.

Over these custom-made beams will be an outer skin of 5,800 aluminum discs, each carefully crafted. hand-laid even for the seagulls, the former philharmonic will look impressive if it is ever completed because the project is now expected to be at least three years behind schedule, costs continue to rise and Hamburg residents are beginning to wonder if the city needs to spend so much money that even the musicians are worried if it was spent with private money then I would say it's wonderful, they can do whatever they want, however the costs are now approaching 400 million euros, it's great to have a musical milestone like this and, uh, but on the other hand, a lot of money is being taken away from all the other cultural activities in the city and this must be monitored.

In November 2011, the crisis over rising costs comes to a head, in a dispute over roof reinforcement, the construction company stops the project. has become much more complicated and expensive than the work they agreed to five years earlier and the tender was too early and you can imagine that if the tender documents are not precise enough, then of course a contractor from the other party will not can offer a fair price or a The exact price of the great plan that has swallowed hundreds of millions of euros of public money lies practically abandoned in the headlines. Revel in the misery of it all and spend month after month as lawyers argue over who is to blame.

Well, frankly, it's a big mess. Unacceptable has become a very political issue and it is something that politicians are fighting over with costs quadrupling if the world's largest concert hall may never be finished well well there is no turning back I mean What do you do with a building like that? For more than a year there has been almost no work on the site until the conflict is finally resolved, but with an additional cost of more than 250 million euros for the city of Hamburg, the total cost for the city now amounts to a whopping of 789 million euros, almost New contracts worth 850 million dollars have been signed which now make the realization of this building possible and which we hope will lead to a result that people will say was worth it in April 2013.

The construction of El Philomony restarts with the glass façade and roof. It can be finished and the focus is on the interior of the large concert hall. The final part of the acoustic design is coming together. More than 10,000 specially designed acoustic tiles will cover the walls and balconies of the auditorium. The design is abstract and modern, but these tiles owe their shape to a concept that dates back centuries. Research reveals that it is not just the shoebox shape that gives classical concert halls their magnificent sound, The decorations along the walls are equally important when sound waves hit the plaster decorations, which disperse in different directions, creating multiple reflections giving a more natural sound.

The Philharmonic Herzog and Demuron have created their own modern equivalent which they call white skin. Their specially developed fibre-reinforced gypsum tiles can be individually micro-shaped to create acoustic reflections to Mr Toyota's exact specifications by dispersing sound. can get a very even distribution over the audience area under the direction of Mr. Toyota. The architects developed the white skin pattern tile by tile, each tile is different. It's part of the microtraining idea, so we started analyzing each war with him. Understanding more depth here meant more dispersion, less depth meant more direct reflection, and in doing so we acoustically optimized each wall for your needs.

It took more than 350 million lines of computer programming to produce this enormous three-dimensional puzzle in each of the 10,287 mosaics. The tiles are different but all their patterns must be aligned. It's basically like returning to Childhood with a huge Meccano. Everything is numbered and labeled. There is a sequence of how things are done for Nick Lyons. This is a tense moment if the tiles don't fit. perfectly together, it will be a big setback. They started about six months ago and have been riding in a sort of spiral all the way to the top. I'm really surprised by the accuracy.

I have to say it just clicked. I mean it all fell into place, of course, there was a little bit of shaving here and there, but overall it was a set piece, it's fantastic and it finally looks like the money awakening is behind them. The progress has been rapid and impressive, especially after so much time. Wait, it's wonderful to see the construction progress, yes, it's going well, the building is starting to look good, but no one really knows if the extraordinary acoustic design will work until the first concert takes place six years late, finally the end has come. view in every part of the building, the painters, the electricians and the installers are working hard, they are putting the finishing touches in preparation for the grand opening to the public, so right now, I mean, we are two or two months before the official delivery to the city, so it is largely about the final painting work and the adjustment of the technical systems, perhaps the establishment. the patio has a little wooden floor the hotel is complete and its 244 rooms are ready to receive guests the best for one night here will cost you more than 3 000 US dollars, on the other side of the building the prices of the luxurious Penthouse Apartments are a secret that is only revealed to people who can prove that they have enough money to buy one the most expensive is said to cost thirty seven thousand dollars per square meter also finished it is the main public space right now we are standing in the Plaza which is the roof of the entire storage building is a public level, everyone can come here and without having to go to concerts so everyone can experience the views after years of delays, the final work is progressing remarkably smoothly, but before so that they can reveal the concert hall to the public.

The acoustic designer must give approval. Mr. Toyota has flown in from Los Angeles. It looks like a really beautiful Mount Fuji. The reflector designed to bounce sound. The orchestra can hear itself playing. He wins her approval. And the concert hall is just amazing. Are you satisfied? much much now Mr. Toyota is ready to put the concert hall design to the first big test of it. he must make the foghorns of a passing ship completely inaudible. The acoustic structure, the double wall of the room will do his job or will Mr. Toyota have to compromise? Harry Carey is actually very close to the building.

I don't hear the inside, but yeah, what's the situation outside? Tell me, okay? Okay, inside the room, the ship's horn is inaudible and the result is very successful. I think he passed his first test. It is soundproof, but the critical test of its acoustics with a full orchestra is yet to come two months before the first concert. the city opens the square level to the public after a six-year delay Hamburg residents can finally see what they paid by plane from Switzerland for the press launch today this is the first handover to the public the handover of the public square and that it will be accessible to everyone, making it a place for everyone to reach the Public Plaza from the entrance, visitors go up an 82 meter long escalator, more than 8 000 giant sequins are on the walls, It is the longest curved escalator in Europe, its visitors ascend its convex. the form slowly reveals its destiny to us, it was always very important to be really firm, you know, in special things, you know, because quality was in the foreground, so for us this was almost without compromise.

The architects have left their mark on every aspect. of the building, yes, huge arches allow light to enter the center of the plaza floor. An undulating curtain of glass rising from the brick floor keeps the wind away from the plaza. Curved stairs at plaza level lead to the main concert hall that surrounds the building. the people of Hamburg a 360 degree view of their city despite the cost the locals seem proud of their new building I think it is a very impressive building, it took quite a while to complete and cost a lot of money but I think it is elegant and I think which is a gateway to the world and a gateway to Hamburg, it's great, it's a great day for the architects in more ways than one, today they are presenting the concert hall to the press despite the obstacles they have had to overcome along the way and realized his original vision, you say that even if this was especially long, architecture is always a marathon, it's not a Sprint, we often had difficult meetings, really difficult meetings or bad news, contractual news or other news, it's not good news, you know, but when you went to the Side of the Constitution, then you came back to this world of projects and you were again fascinated and really excited by this unique place and the work really kept us alive.

It has taken 16 years from the initial sketch to the finished construction, but the time has finally come to The architects let go of their creation, they are like children, you are with them, you take care of yourself, you do the best you can to make it really a great child or a great piece of architecture and you have to let it go like children, in fact Hamburg finally has its new landmark It's been almost two decades since Alexander Gerard first conceived the idea of ​​putting a concert hall in an old warehouse. What do you think of the final result?

The appearance is different from what we imagine. We wanted more traditional glass facades, but all the other details are wonderful. I really think it's very, very good architecture, the building as a whole is really exceptional, unlike the architects. Mr. Toyota can't let him go yet. This is just the beginning of the process of our actual testing and first-time reduction missions. uh, I would say that in the most difficult moment and since everything is new, it means yes, for example, and how to play, how to listen to each other, uh, the process is taking time, gradually, the situation will improve, you know , and uh changed and by Mission they themselves satisfy their greatest demand and the musicians who will work here Jan Larson is the first viola player in the Resident Orchestra, what do you think like a crystal?

You can hear every detail. It's very easy to listen to your colleagues. He's kind of a very strict teacher for a group, so you really have to be into every little detail, you have to be perfect, otherwise you can hear it, it's just great after checking the sound in the room. Mr. Toyota gives his personal verdict on the acoustics, hey dear, uh. you know which one is one of the best or one of the top five or you know it, but it's still unique and they should definitely be in one of the world class ones, but the most important judges will be the audience that attends the first foreign concert, it's the opening. night of the hamburg elm philosophy concert hall a city offers a spectacular show on the square level concert goers climb the grand staircase leading to the concert hall each of its 2,100 seats was reserved ago months abroad while the doors are closed the holes in the double walls ensure that not a single sound reaches the public areas.

This is the moment of truth. Discerning Hamburg music lovers will give the acoustics a thumbs up. It's really crisp and clear. It was really unexperienced to hear that and you can hear every one of them. instrument was really impressive, yes very nice, most people seem to love the hole in their acoustic. I think the sound is beautiful, you can hear individual instruments and you really become very aware of how the sound is produced and spread. The acoustics are very good. well and it's an acoustic that's probably best described as breathing, you know, if anyone knows if the sound works, it's world-class conductor Ken Nagano, the concert hall is a huge success, of course, from the point of acoustic view, I think everyone The musician including myself and all members of the audience are deeply moved to have this acoustic here in Hamburg, a total cost of 866 million euros, about 900 million dollars.

The Elbe Philharmonic has been described as possibly the most expensive entertainment venue since the Romans built the Colosseum. it's worth it i think watching it right now it's probably worth it yes it's worth it yes this is itit was certainly worth the money and also that's how it is in Germany if someone had said at the beginning that it would be more than 500 million then no one would have built it there would never have been an approval so you start small and then and when It is there, it is something so fantastic that you no longer think too much about the money, is it worth it?

It is simply worth it and it will be worth it for many years, whether decades, or centuries, we do not know, but it is worth every penny, yes, and it is the largest concert hall in the world. It has the potential to be one of the great halls in the world um and we will have to wait and see this is the story of the battle to build a railway through one of the most extreme environments on Earth delaying over a thousand kilometers of track in a remote desert to drive seven tunnels through steep slopes to raise 675 bridges over valleys and rivers, all at an altitude where even a simple breath is nearly impossible to achieve.

This is a difficult place to work headaches difficulty breathing freezing winds 140,000 workers and 2,000 doctors fought for five years to conquer this hostile environment and complete Tibet's Qinghai Railway, the highest and most extreme railway in the world. Beijing West, the largest station in Asia and one of the busiest. Four hundred thousand can pass through here in a single day, thank you. Among today's crowd is the Finnish engineer passi lauta. You're here to see with Thief himself how one of the most extraordinary railways on the planet was built. lands, so I don't think anything like that has been done in the world of railway engineering.

This is no ordinary train ride. Lassa Express is a multi-million dollar Marvel purpose-built to survive at altitudes higher than the Swiss Alps and in freezing temperatures. temperatures For train-obsessed Percy, it's a trip he's dreamed of for years. I've read about it and seen some of the engineering solutions they use to build the road and I have to see it. It's 9:30 and the Lasser Express is underway. Are you the director of rail transportation at Michigan Technological University? Pasi is here on business. We are working to connect the Alaska rail network with the Canadian rail network and as part of our product we have been studying some of the regions called railways around the world. world to see how some of the other countries and some of the other regions have built them, so it's a learning experience for me from Beijing, the Lassa Express will travel 3000 kilometers across China to the city of Golmoud, from there the train will go up. up to the Tibetan plateau and across the roof of the world to Lassa is now a trip, but it's the last high-altitude section of the line that's interesting.

Percy crosses land higher than any mountain in the American Rockies, an environment so hostile it's like building a railroad. on Mars and it took Chinese engineers 50 years to figure out how to do it. The idea of ​​building this controversial railway dates back to the 1950s, when the Chinese army occupied Tibet in 1950. They wanted a railway to supply the troops, but first they had to build a railway. They needed a road, the Chinese government sent a large workforce equipped with basic tools for the harsh conditions of the Tibetan plateau, but around 3,000 workers died from exposure and altitude sickness.

It was a disaster and although the dream of a railway to the Tibet remained alive the plans were finally shelved today the Lasser Express makes its way through the industrial east of China at more than 110 kilometers per hour it is the pride of Chinese railways and only the best get to work on it Yang Jing Jing is The train master is responsible for everything that happens on board, especially in terms of safety. I need to ensure the train has a safe journey from Beijing to Lassa. He starts the day with a briefing for some of the 36 employees who serve passengers.

The 13 passenger carriages of the Lasser Express are divided into three types, two of the so-called soft sleepers are the Chinese equivalent of first class. Well, this is definitely a pretty luxurious way to travel. This compartment is called a soft sleeper. Those four birds sleep four people and we even have an entertainment system with some Chinese TV or movies, but it's not as luxurious for everyone on the train, seven carriages offer hard sleeping accommodation, a little tighter with six people per room and four Carriages are simply equipped with seats for 900 people on board who need to be fed for two days and nights, that is the responsibility of Zhangyang and his four chefs, the most difficult part is that we have people of different ethnic backgrounds along the railway, all They have different tastes, Tibetans, the way ethnic people and other minorities have different tastes, it makes life very difficult. and the train has plenty of hot water for those who like to prepare their own kitchen of hope.

It may look like a normal train, but later in the journey the lives of everyone on board will depend on the hidden high-tech features of its carriages. They have been built specifically to cope with the conditions of the Tibetan plateau. When you look at these trains, they look like normal Chinese trains. There is nothing extraordinary, except that I see this one here. It is an oxygen outlet where you can get some extra oxygen. the high altitudes of the train thanks to each car is equipped with an oxygen generating unit that will come into operation at high altitude is a small omen of what awaits us throughout the day the train heads west stopping to take safety cats and pick up passengers lhasa There are still 24 hours to go, but there are already signs of Tibetan culture as new passengers settle in for the night.

The train is already going up when it reaches Golmu, the last stop before the Tibetan plateau, it will be 2,800 meters above sea level at 3. I am, most of the passengers are fast asleep, they are wide awake, this is a Quite an exciting moment for me, in a few minutes we will reach ball mode, which is the last station before the train goes up to the Tibet plateau, since I want to see how. they built the track this is the end of the line for me it's time to get up and find out how the chinese engineers conquered the plateau he needs to see the line up close and in daylight this is where the engineering challenge really begins yes the remaining passengers are about to undertake a steep climb of 2,000 meters and that means changing engines to a locomotive with great power at very high altitudes, a conventional diesel cannot cope with the low oxygen levels.

Bring on a pair of 138-ton nj2 Locos diesel electric monsters with a combined 8,000 horsepower immediately behind the engine. They have added an electricity-generating car, the train's life support system that supplies heat and, most importantly, oxygen for passengers and crew. The train is about to embark on an extreme journey that is only possible thanks to radical engineering and a controversial political decision. In 1984, the Chinese railway system had reached its peak, but here it stopped for the next 16 years. The unique problems of building a railway at very high altitude blocked their advance to Lassa. Then, in 1999, the Chinese government announced that it wanted to extend its railway network to the poor and underdeveloped regions of western China and Tibet.

Foreigners said the railway would bring prosperity to the province and raise living standards. Critics claimed that the line was aimed at tightening political control over Tibet and would allow large numbers of Han Chinese to travel. move here invading the culture of the local Tibetans whatever the truth China's engineers had a lot of work to accomplish this audacious plan 50 kilometers outside the goal humor pasi lautela begins his mission to discover how Chinese engineers solved the first challenge of This extreme terrain to reach the plateau, they first had to cross the formidable peaks of the Kyeonglong Mountains, the old Tibetan road runs near the new railway, which gave Percy the opportunity to drive the route well when you see these common mountains with peaks. snowfall, it is no longer surprising that it took 50 years to build this railway line here, quite magnificent cars and trucks can cope with steep climbs, but heavy trains need a slow and gradual ascent, what engineers call a slope constant.

Well, they chose this route because it passes between the tops of the mountains they are following. intermediate valley and that is the easiest way to keep the slope gentle, but going straight up the valley is out of the question, the slope is too steep, so the railway must zigzag up Crossing over and over literally dozens of bridges at two thirds of the slope On the way to the valley, the engineers faced a huge challenge by building the sanchiha bridge, the highest bridge on the entire route, right here we are crossing the river valley, so we have to keep the railway in the air so we can maintain the gentle slope, the critical point. structure that had to be completed quickly so they could get supplies to the plateau by rail to build the rest of the railroad and that meant working through the winter sending an army of workers to work and keeping the concrete warm when temperatures dropped to minus 20.

They managed build the bridge in just 12 months the deadline was met wow, this is fantastic. I'm so glad I got off the train and I can't even imagine what it was like to build this bridge during the winter. Incredible, but this was just the beginning. Passy heads over the Kyunlong Mountains into the cold, thin air of the Tibetan Plateau. He is about to discover an extraordinary natural phenomenon that destroys the cities that cross the mountains of Kyanla. He dawns for passengers aboard the T27 train from Beijing. Lassa brings with it spectacular views of the Tibetan plateau.

I had dreamed of coming to Tibet for many years and seeing the landscape from many books and the landscape is much better than we imagined and from the book in reality, so it's really cool, yes, this amazing area is so vast and cold that it is He has called it the third pole. It extends over two and a half million square kilometers. A quarter of the area of ​​China. Winter temperatures drop to -35 degrees Celsius and the entire area is higher than the Matterhorn for railway engineers like Pasi Lautela, this is as difficult as it sounds.

If you asked me to build a railroad with all these mountains, I'd probably run away. I don't think you can find a much greater challenge than doing something like that. It is possible because beneath the flat surface of the plateau lies a substance that for 50 years defeated all attempts to build a railway. The permafrost of the Frozen Earth can have a viewing depth of meters or up to 50 or 60 meters and the majority of the permafrost remains frozen throughout the year the problem is not the permanent permafrost deep in the ground but a layer of soil and water Above it the active layer that freezes in winter and thaws in summer in winter the ground is frozen, but if I were here In summer it would be like walking on a crust or a swamp.

The effects of winter frost can be easily demonstrated. It's pretty cold here, so let's do a little experiment. I have a bottle full of water and I'm We'll leave it here, we'll come back and see what happened to it and here's the result of our experiment. As water freezes, it expands by about nine percent. Now this landscape is filled with water that behaves the same way as water in the bottle for decades. The soil here can shift several meters. It's a problem that locals have struggled with for centuries, as Posse discovers on his first stop in the plateau, the small town of Wu Dalian, where the locals have been having a little problem with their foundation, many of the buildings in this town show permafrost damage once the ground moves due to freezing and thawing, almost nothing can stop him while the ground rises and falls, he is destroying the city.

I mean, take a look at these cracks in this building. This is a great example of what permafrost can do to buildings. The movement of permafrost makes it impossible to build a railway, as the builders of this line in Alaska and these lines in Canada discovered the hard way, so Chinese engineers were expected to somehow solve the unsolvable. This nightmarish problem landed on the desk of cold region scientists Guo Dong Jin, who quickly dismissed the obvious conventional solution. The problem with this idea is that it involves an enormous amount of work, you have to dig up all the foundations. removing all the ice and finally filling it with rocks on more than half of the planned route across the Tibetan Plateau crossed permafrost 632 kilometers in total building deep foundations in the permafrost on such a large scale wassimply too much labor and too much cost even for the Chinese Then came a revelation: the solution had been in front of Chang right here on the plateau.

The locals had discovered that the biggest problem for their houses was that the heat inside was melting the ground causing subsidence. Their solution was to build their houses on stilts. or putting pipes between the building and the ground to allow air to flow through. Cheng realized that this kept the ground under the houses frozen. It was a Eureka moment if I could keep the ground under the railway frozen then it wouldn't sink. I think the biggest issue regarding rail is the idea that we need to shift from maintaining the temperature to reducing it. It is essential to test this idea in the 1970s.

Chang's team built a research station on the Bayua Plateau. They built a test section of the railway. Railway embankment and we started experimenting, so here we have vents which are simply hollow pipes that run through the embankment in winter and allow cold air and wind to pass through the embankment, removing heat over time. Something amazing happened year after year on the ground. down cooled for several years reduced the average ground temperature by two or three degrees, enough to keep it frozen, but building an entire 600-kilometer-long railway line with concrete tubes running through it would still be too expensive.

Chang's cheap idea was Not Cheap Enough, but he didn't give up after years surveying the plateau. He realized that something strange was happening under piles of small rocks. Reports showed that the temperature beneath the rocks was lower than other areas. This could point the way to an even cheaper price. solution that the tubes a report from a remote area of ​​eastern Kazakhstan confirmed their suspicions archaeologists had discovered ancient tombs made of piles of small rocks and noted that the ground far from the tombs was soft and marshy, but beneath each tomb was frozen and had remained Frozen for thousands of years, preserving the artifacts beneath, somehow these rocks were cooling the ground at the research station.

Cheng decided to see if an embankment built with small rocks could do the same for a railway. The purpose of these crushed rocks is to remove heat from the embankment and from the crown below so that when they are built they ensure that there is no fine material between the rocks, leaving as much room for air to circulate as possible in just 14 months. Chang's experimental rock embankment reduced the average soil temperature by three degrees Celsius and found out how it worked in winter. Strong, cold winds blew through the rocks drawing heat from the ground, while in summer the Rock protected the embankment from the heat of the sun after 50 years of frustration that Chinese scientists had encountered. a 2,000-year-old solution to the permafrost problem that was as low-tech as possible.

It can be a layer almost a meter thick that descends to the embankment, then descends to the other side and rises again forming almost a U shape in The last Chinese engineers were able to start building the railway in 2001. Thousands of workers gathered on the plateau and in 2002 they began to build the enormous embankments using local materials and basic machinery. Construction crews were extending the railway line at an incredible rate thanks to another very clever but simple idea the PG30 locomotive laying its own rails as it goes makes building a track almost as easy as assembling a model train in mid As of 2003, workers had laid more than 250 kilometers of track from Goldmood to the Tibetan Plateau and were making good progress toward Lasser, but the battle with the permafrost was far from over, in some areas the permafrost is very warm, so rocks alone could not solve the problem and in those cases they would have to look for alternative solutions in some sections of the route, summer temperatures were too warm.

The embankments needed a little extra help to keep the ground frozen. An ingenious device was found that was once again very low. The technology took advantage of nature and did not require energy. These strange looking tubes are called thermosyphons. The idea behind this is ingenious but really quite simple. If you've ever licked the back of your hand and blown, your skin feels cold, that's because water is evaporating and that takes heat away from your skin. These work in a similar way up to 10 meters long and 5 meters buried in the ground, thermosyphons contain ammonia, a cooling liquid;

However, unlike a refrigerator, a thermosyphon does not need a power supply to operate inside the tube, the liquid ammonia behaves a little like water on the skin: it absorbs heat. from the ground, causing it to boil and evaporate into a gas, the gas rises in the tube taking the heat from the ground with it, the cold wind above cools the tube and the ammonia gives up its heat to the outside air and condenses again in a liquid that runs to the bottom of the tube and the cycle repeats simple low-tech genius 34 kilometers of track are cooled in this way the thermosyphons were unable to protect the most vulnerable sections of the permafrost Hussey is heading to an area called Ching Soo almost a quarter of the way across the plateau to explore the most fragile permafrost zone of the entire route.

Here the active layer of permafrost melts during the summer and becomes a treacherous swamp that can behave almost like quicksand if it becomes that type of quicksand. You can't put anything on top of it, everything would sink into it immediately. The ground here gets too hot in summer even for thermosyphons to cool down. If engineers couldn't find a way through this shifting swamp, there would be no railroad, though Engineers. They recognized that in the most difficult places, crossed rocks and thermosyphons were not enough to have a durable railway, so they decided to build structures or test bridges in these places.

Now this was more expensive, but they believed it was the right way to go to find the answer they thought they were dealing with. the swamp as if it were water Bridges along the Route teams of workers drilled thousands of deep holes in the permafrost drilling through the active layer and into the ice beneath that remained frozen all year round they could build on solid foundations at least that was the Theory because now they were facing A New Nightmare and again it was all a matter of temperature. Concrete poured into the ground to make bridge piers could destroy the very foundations they were building on.

When concrete is mixed, it goes through a chemical reaction. states that it emits heat in this experiment, the temperature of the mixture constantly increases when all its work is aimed at maintaining permafrost. Freezing heat is the last thing you want, the temperature here is 13 degrees which would be enough to melt the ice around the structure. and to make it unstable, so how would DIY Chinese engineering deal with this by putting mother nature to work for them? They would build in the dead of winter, when the ambient temperature drops below freezing, and cool the concrete to 5 degrees by pouring it as quickly as possible.

Before it was established, by recruiting thousands of workers, they built almost 3,000 bridge pillars in just seven months. An impressive achievement epitomized by one of the line's iconic features, the spectacular 11.7 kilometer-long Qingsua Bridge, the longest permafrost bridge in the world. The permafrost problem was finally conquered in total more than 160 kilometers of the Qinghai Tibet Railway is built on bridges like this one seventh of the entire route but the permafrost was not the only formidable natural challenge of the plateau the terrain is so high which is deficient in one of the basic ingredients for life up here you struggle to survive with an average altitude of four thousand five hundred meters, unsurprisingly the Tibetan plateau is very sparsely populated, about a third of the way across the plateau , the Tibetan city of Totowa has a population of 1,300.

The locals have adapted to living at high altitude. for hundreds of years, but for anyone else it is a serious danger up here, breathing is much more difficult than at sea level despite that disadvantage, Pasi is taking on the local pool champion to prove that air is mainly composed of nitrogen and oxygen molecules, approximately one in five. The molecules are oxygen at sea level, there are many nitrogen and oxygen molecules in every breath we take, but the higher you go, those molecules are less and less at 4,700 meters where I am now, the amount of oxygen in the air is almost half.

That's why, here at sea level, it is very difficult for the body to get enough oxygen from the air into the blood and muscles where it is needed. The harder we work, the more oxygen our bodies need and if we don't get enough it can be fatal in severe cases the fluids can leak into your lungs and brain and kill you. While the Lasser Express travels over the plateau one of the crew's most important jobs is Monitor passengers who are looking for signs of altitude sickness. The train now travels at 4500 meters above sea level. Medical advice recommends that you take five days to climb to this altitude to give yourself time to acclimatise.

The train has done it in just 32 hours at this altitude about three quarters of people begin to experience the altitude. I can feel the air is very thin when I was taking pictures, even the slightest movements made me feel breathless from the Chunar River. I started to feel dizzy and sick, my nose feels very dry and so does my son's. He has also complained of belly pain. reduce these symptoms remember those special oxygen generators that fill the cars inside Rich there the oxygen generators inside each car use a technique called membrane separation the air from outside the train is compressed and pumped through small tubes the walls of Those tubes are made of a membrane that contains small holes that allow more smaller oxygen molecules to pass through than the larger nitrogen.

The unwanted nitrogen is expelled from the train through an outlet pipe while oxygen-enriched air is drawn into the cars and raises the level in the air from 21 to 24. Not much, but it makes most people feel better, but for people who are really suffering there is a support system. Staff give distressed passengers a tube they can connect directly to an oxygen supply. Every birth and seat on the train has its own oxygen. The train supply is not pressurized like an airplane cabin, but the doors are sealed to keep the oxygen-enriched atmosphere inside and there is a very slight positive pressure so that outside air cannot be seen.

Thanks in comparison for the workers who built the road conditions. On the plateau it was hell. Hard physical work at this altitude is not only difficult but also dangerous. I really feel quite brotherly here on the plateau my head hurts a little and although I walk at a slower than normal pace, I am completely out of breath, many of the 3,000 workers who died building the first road to Tibet in the 1950s died of altitude sickness and railway engineers were interested in not repeating the disaster, but they needed to build extreme structures at extreme altitudes, including one in particular, I had to see this.

This is the highest railway tunnel in the world. 4905 meters above sea level. The Chinese called the fungwa shantano the closest door to heaven. I can't even imagine what the people who built this had to go through. at 4900 meters and there's not much oxygen, so it had to be literally a pain to build. The construction of this tunnel required hundreds of workers to live and work at this extreme altitude, so the railway company brought in one of China's leading altitude experts. head of altitude medicine of the Qinghai Highlands Medical and Scientific Research Center, engineers built the tunnel and other high-altitude structures without the tragic loss of life from road construction in the 1950s during construction initial of the Tibetan railway, since most of the workers were from nearby regions. sea ​​level were not adapted to the Highlands aware of the dangers of Rapid Ascent Professor Wu prepared a careful plan our first measure was a gradual adaptation which meant allowing them to Ascend gradually from the Interior, after the journey from Beijing to Sheening, they They would stop for Three days and then a week, stopping at Goldmood and then ascending to the Tangoola Mountains.

Professor Wu had thesupport of a vast team of 2,000 doctors and nurses. Foreign hospitals were built every 18 kilometers along the route to treat sick workers and Professor Wu ensured that there was a good supply of oxygen. During the railway construction process 21 oxygen production stations were built, with An average of about one per 50 kilometres, this would ensure that during work each worker had a small oxygen supply device, but the heavy cylinders made the job more difficult. Instead, oxygen generators were installed to pump oxygen-enriched air through the tunnel to the face workers. With the extra oxygen, it was as if they were working 1,200 meters closer to sea level, but many of the tunnel workers still got sick, so Wu's team. 25 emergency hyperbaric oxygen chambers were installed along the route of the line.

Over time, the work adapted to the altitude by the fifth year. The incidence of altitude sickness was very low, so there was not a single case of illness. serious height in October 2002 Workers had completed the Fung War Shan tunnel, it was a great triumph, opening the way to the rest of the plateau and the route south to Lassa, but it was not fast enough for the Chinese government . 2004 Beijing announced that it wanted the railway to be completed by early 2006. A year ahead of schedule, it was almost impossible. Demand an already ambitious program. There was only one way to do it.

They decided to JUMP to the city of Amdo in Tibet and start building the railway from there. two directions at the same time one machine would lay the track towards the goal mood, while a second machine would continue towards Lasser, tripling the construction speed until summer three teams of tracklayers were making their way across the plateau in total 140,000 The workers who worked on the High Altitude section of the line thanks to the medical plan avoided the fate of the 1950s workers who built the original highway, so despite having had more than a thousand cases of serious high altitude illnesses during the five years, no one died.

The mortality rate was zero thanks to the oxygen supply on board. The crew and passengers of the Lasser Express travel in relative safety, but as they cross the plateau their lives depend on another critical safety system. Save money. The line was built as a single track, but that brings There is a constant danger: if two trains traveling in opposite directions accidentally fall on the same line, there could be a head-on collision, but to control the trains there are no signals, but rather a Along the road approximately every 15 kilometers there is a mobile phone antenna. that passes information between the train and the control center At 2,300 kilometers of the Route there are crossing loops short sections of double track where trains can cross 39 hours after their trip the Lasser Express approaches one of these tangula crossing points The highest railway station in the world is a ghostly place.

The station is simply a passing point for trains. It is early afternoon and the train is still 500 kilometers from Lasser. Inside, passengers are protected from the extreme environment outside, but while the train protects passengers from the environment It must also do the opposite, it has to protect the fragile ecosystem of this ancient landscape from human contamination. The plateau contains the Kakashili and Sanjin Yuen nature reserve. The second largest nature reserve in the world. It is larger than England and Wales combined. The ecological system is easily altered and destroyed. Most trains around the world sewage and sewage are dumped directly onto the tracks, but not here, the heat from all that water would heat up the permafrost and degrade it, destroying the foundations the train runs on. , so the Chinese have gone green instead of dumping sewage.

On the road, the Lhasa Express stores it in collection tanks under each carriage, each tank containing 500 liters of wastewater, enough for 250 toilet flushes each night. At the Golden station, a small fleet of mini tankers runs along one of the platforms at 11:45 p.m. Lasser. The Express's sister train the Lassa t-28 arrives on its way to Beijing after crossing the plateau the train's tanks are full of sewage a small army of workers spring into action, connecting hoses to the tanks and pumping out the sewage during The entire operation takes less than 10 minutes The train leaves the station The tankers head off to safely dispose of the waste 900 relieved passengers head to Beijing Percy is impressed by the efforts to conserve this fragile ecosystem, but on his trip to Through the plateau he discovers that everything is fine.

Not at all well with the railway the line itself remains threatened despite all efforts to keep the ground below the line frozen the Qinghai Tibet railway is under attack by an unexpected enemy in parts of the plateau a natural phenomenon is found that Sand has been here for thousands of years, although this is quite impressive, I really didn't expect to see Santos here on the plateau, it's almost like being on the beach, the problem with sand is that, unlike mud, its grains They don't stick if I put my hand in them. Here, on a windy day like this, it just goes away and blows straight towards the railway embankment half a kilometer away and this is where the problem comes: the smell that has been floating on the wind is filling the gaps in the railway embankment.

Rock As the crushed rock embankment fills with sand, it loses its ability to cool the ground in time, this could cause the permafrost to melt and buckle the track, so railway companies do everything they can to prevent this from happening. and they have erected dozens of these fences to keep the sand away from the tracks it looks like the sand has piled up behind the fence The wind blows through the fine mesh of the fences slows down and lets the sand fall but despite all The efforts the sand here has already permeated The Rock embankment the sand only affects a small section of the line, but there is another, much more serious threat to the long-term future of the railway and this is man-made.

The permafrost on the plateau is extremely sensitive to temperature changes and global warming is slowly warming it. Our country has conducted research in this field and provided us with a set of data that speculates that the temperature of the Qinghai Tibetan Plateau will increase by 2.2 to 2.6 degrees Celsius over the next 50 years. The railway is designed to cope with a temperature of three degrees. Increase in average temperature is strange, but other factors could raise temperatures much higher than this across the continent and particularly in neighboring India. Coal is widely used in fires and ovens that produce smoke containing black soot particles, much of which falls on the snow that covers the Tibetan plateau in winter.

The dark particles cause the dirty snow to absorb more heat from the sun than the clean snow in spring snow now melts earlier than before contributing to the warming of the plateau despite all measures to keep the trackbed frozen if the temperature rises more than three degrees the railway could have problems the Lasser Express passes on the impressive triple span bridge that crosses the sacred river skaiatu for the train crew it is a welcome sight 47 hours it is a sign that they are approaching the end of their journey great news Lassa station 35 is a symbol of Chinese determination that the railway came to stay with this line.

Chinese engineers have proven that they are among the best in the world and have laid the foundations for an expansion program like the one the world has had. never seen in the next five years China will spend approximately 300 billion dollars building more than thirty thousand kilometers of new railways to passy lautela your time on the plateau has come to an end coming here has been an impressive experience for me already I had a lot of respect for the people who built this railway, but only now do I realize the challenges they faced. I mean, this is a tough place to work. headaches, shortness of breath, freezing winds, not only did they build the railway, but from an engineering point of view, it really is.

It is quite surprising that the Qinghai Tibet Railway is a truly monumental engineering achievement, a great work of human effort and ingenious low-tech engineering that shows the way forward for new railway lines around the world, perhaps the beginning of a new golden era of railways.