- 1 week ago
A new museum building bends 1,100-glass tubes to form a facade and tunnels below the water table. A vast 11-storey glass atrium HQ is built on the former Berlin Wall site to represent unity. And NJ's Bayonne Bridge gets a facelift.
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00:00How do you construct an extraordinary building that represents the reunification of germany
00:06but wants to fall down we needed 132 000 cubic meters of scaffolding which had to be filled
00:16how do you build a museum covered entirely in glass tubes that lights up at night had cracks
00:23and the cracks grew over time so that scared everybody and how do you give a 100 year old
00:29bridge a facelift to get it ready for the next 100. keeping a bridge operational while you build a
00:36new bridge within its own structure this has never been done before welcome to a world where anything
00:42is possible the space where innovation and creativity collide this isn't just impressive
00:52it's revolutionary where the only limit is human imagination this wasn't just ambitious
01:00it was audacious no one had ever attempted anything like it
01:07unpacking the miracles and mysteries of construction sometimes buildings can change the world
01:14and this is one of them to ask how did they build that
01:28want to create a stunning building in houston texas that's worthy of housing one of america's finest
01:33most valuable collections of modern art well first of all you're gonna need a touch of class and then
01:39you're gonna need a touch of glass 1100 translucent tubes of it to be exact and the result is quite
01:46simply a modern masterpiece the heart of houston has been home to the museum of fine arts since its first
01:56gallery opened in 1924. over the years the campus expanded with buildings designed by some of the world's
02:04greatest architects these van der roe raphael manejo isamu noguchi these are some of the big names in 20th
02:13century architecture it was very much houstonians wanting to create something that could one day be like
02:24the great institutions on the east coast in 2012 as part of this grand vision the trustees decide to add
02:32another building to its collection the brief was to create a building of approximately 250 000 square feet
02:40to create a parking garage with at least 440 spaces and to unify the campus
02:49one of the competing architects is stephen hull who designed the reach expansion to the kennedy center in
02:56washington dc and the horizontal skyscraper at vanke center in china but hole has an issue with what the
03:06museum wants we read the brief and basically said they should not be building a parking garage first
03:14he throws out the museum's plan and starts from scratch i said i want you to switch it now and not
03:21build a parking garage and build a new glass cell and put the parking underneath and beautiful tunnels with
03:26art in them anyway they agreed and it was a unanimous vote for our project his audacious plan will put a
03:34hundred thousand square feet of gallery space in an extraordinary new building named after patrons nancy
03:41and rich kinder
03:45the team will need to dig in waterlogged ground to house the parking garage
03:50above it will be three stories of galleries which on the inside will let the art take center stage
03:58and on the outside there will be an incredible exterior that's if they can work out how to bend
04:04thousands of glass tubes the next challenge will be engineering a roof designed to mimic clouds
04:12finally they must dig down into the water table connecting the campus through a series of tunnels
04:23it's a formidable engineering challenge and they've got the texas hurricanes and heat working against them
04:29on may 31st 2017 work starts on the foundation of the nancy and rich kinder building
04:42but in august disaster hits houston we're about 40 feet below street level when hurricane harvey hit
04:50that put a stop to everything harvey is the first category for hurricane to hit the u.s mainland in 12
05:00years displacing 30 000 people and causing over 150 billion u.s dollars worth of damage
05:09hurricane harvey is nothing i've ever seen before and i don't expect ever to see it again the rainfall
05:16that resulted from it which was the damage it did was anywhere from a one in five thousand to one in
05:23nine thousand year event 50 inches of rainfall causes devastation across the city including the museum's
05:32construction site we got picture showing the basement as a pond with filled with water the hole itself had
05:44about a million gallons of water in it that we had to pump out after the storm had moved through
05:50clearing the site takes four weeks but surprisingly the foundation has survived unscathed
05:58work starts on the main building which is going to need to stand out among some very distinguished neighbors
06:05the original building is 1924 stone and then these buildings glass and steel then across the street you
06:11have the moneo a block of stone and i said let's not do steel and glass let's not do stone let's do a
06:19complementary contrast in translucent glass to do that they need something pretty solid to hang the glass off
06:27of they decide on cast in place concrete meanwhile hull and the design team are working on the details of the glass
06:37facade stephen hall is known as the master of light he uses it like some architects use concrete or timber
06:48we were fooling around in the shop and we got these plexiglass tubes and we saw them in half and we started
06:54to make the model in that and then we said ah tubes hollow tubes of glass the entire exterior will be covered in
07:04these glass half tubes causing the finished building to glow translucent facades have been done before
07:11curved glass has been done before but in this combination um six to seven meter long half glass
07:18tubes with such a tight bending radius translucent that has not been done before to create holes vision
07:25they'll need 1100 of these half tubes in 29 different sizes
07:30they're basically two methods to bend glass you can use a machine but then the radius is quite limited
07:40on the machine the smallest tube they can get is around six feet across this is way too big so we
07:48finally used the gravity bending methods to fabricate the glass
07:51you put your layers of glass over a mold then heat it slowly and as it softens it begins to form a shape
08:01around the mold below it it's reliable but it's not as fast and it requires some very big ovens
08:09it's an ancient technique that's been around since the romans but on this scale it's practically unheard of
08:16we hit a stone wall i mean a glass wall which you will because nobody could do this these tubes that
08:24are 20 feet tall and 30 inches in diameter laminated glass they were that was never done before anywhere so
08:32who's gonna do it eventually they find two specialty manufacturers in china to take on the job
08:3912 test pieces are made to shiver specifications and sent to texas but it's bad news three of the
08:48tubes had cracks and the cracks grew over time so that scared everybody sheber has to rethink the glass
08:56design what we did was slightly increasing the radius of the tubes but only by one or two inches we
09:03increased the glass thickness from six millimeters to eight millimeters and no problems occurred on the
09:09next full scale mock-up we built that gave us the confidence that we could use it on the actual project
09:16but manufacturing the glass tubes isn't the only challenge because there's a danger this facade could
09:23turn the museum into a giant greenhouse in 2023 there were 45 days above 100 degrees
09:33fahrenheit in houston this high heat on a glass exterior creates something engineers call solar gain
09:42as heat energy radiates through the glass it produces heat inside and that air gets very hot and can be a
09:50problem if it's not able to ventilate for a solution first they choose a clever glass by adding four layers of a
09:59resin called polyvinyl butyrol they can dramatically reduce the amount of heat getting through
10:08then the team turns to a bit of engineering know-how called the chimney effect heat rises so if you
10:15collect heat along the whole length of a facade as the heat rises it's gonna draw cold air up from below
10:23and exhale all the hot air up above it's like creating your own breeze by creating a gap between
10:30the glass and the wall behind it hot air will be funneled up the curve of the glass should make this
10:37more effective to find out how well it will work they build a section to test
10:42the heat gain was reduced by around 72 percent just due to the glass tubes it looked good it worked in
10:52the sun it was like oh thank god this is gonna work all the team has to do now is attach them
11:03the tubes are set into place using cranes with suction cups for the semi-circular shape of the tubes
11:10they're set into a steel frame and glazed into place which makes for a nail-biting experience when
11:17the 1100 glass tubes being suction cupped into place are made in a factory about 8 000 miles away
11:26it complicates things because if you break something you've got to wait to get a whole
11:30new piece made and brought to site
11:31in houston texas the team building the nancy and rich kinder building at the museum of fine arts
11:41must carefully fit 1100 glass tubes to its exterior
11:48so they take their time treating each tube like it was made of glass less than five were broken in
11:55shipping two were broken on site and otherwise we did really well there
12:02as the glass is being installed the team looks to their next challenge in houston when it's 100 degrees
12:09you want to walk in a cool space from one piece of the campus to the other the idea is to dig two
12:17tunnels that will do much more than just connect the new building to the rest of the campus
12:22it's easier to cool a tunnel and then if you have art it's an art experience it's not just a tunnel
12:29however tunneling in houston isn't straightforward the groundwater table in houston is really high
12:36here it's about eight feet below the surface you'll start running into water so to avoid flooding
12:42and prevent the tunnels from collapsing the engineers turn to a commonly used technique called open cut
12:49you dig a big trench you build a concrete box inside from one side to the other and you backfill over it
12:57it's fine for tunnel number one but for the longer tunnel the open cut system isn't gonna cut it
13:05it goes underneath a main thoroughfare through this part of town bissonette street
13:09and we couldn't close that because of all the traffic up top
13:12this means digging the tunnel deeper but then they hit groundwater so to combat that they install
13:21dewatering wells which literally lower the water table around the excavation site then they dig very
13:30very carefully we had to go very slowly we had a small excavator that would
13:38dig out six inches at a time then we would put up an i-beam inject grout behind it and go another six
13:45inches so that we could reinforce the tunnel structure so we didn't have any cave-ins that could have been
13:52catastrophic it's slow going but there's no way around it only going six inches at a time took us
13:59about 100 working days to complete our other tunnel which was a more traditional open trench took about
14:0460 days both tunnels do get there in the end and without any major hiccups
14:11back at the museum it's ready for a roof one inspired by the heavens i had the idea of the big texas guy
14:23coming into a luminous canopy where i imagine these giant clouds that happen in texas very high up
14:30pushing down and causing the roof to warp just like the real thing sections of this cloud inspired roof
14:39will allow in filtered natural light protecting the yard inside so ideally a roof is a simple structure
14:47some kind of square grid system this was not that but it proves too complicated for the steel
14:54fabricator's connection engineer the engineer decided he couldn't do it and so he resigned and they came to
15:02us to say how do we get this done the problem is that using traditional steel beams for this design
15:09would require a unique angled connector at almost every joint when you count the two ends of each
15:17beams there were at least a thousand different rotational conditions that had to be considered
15:22we had many conversations trying to see what would be the right solution when we did come up with this idea
15:28of being able to actually twist the members so that they did come into alignment
15:32uh i think it was a real aha moment there's just enough flex in the steel beams to allow the team
15:40to twist them into the roof shape without having to create unique connectors at each joint
15:47but each has to be meticulously checked to ensure the stresses haven't compromised them there were 57
15:55different steps that the contractor had to go through he would connect a series of beams to create one
16:01cloud and then he would create a series of beams to make another cloud those would have to be connected
16:06and the difficulties don't end there we learned that the whole structure was not self-supporting
16:15until the final roof beam was set in place that means you got to support it as you build it
16:20it takes a lot of scaffolding but in 2020 two years into the build the last piece is put into place
16:29once the final roof beam was set we got to take down all the shoring and see the roof structure in
16:35its entirety and it was very impressive spider web of beams and trusses coming together up top
16:43over the next few months holes impossible 50 000 square feet of roof clouds is created
16:51and finally on november 21st 2020 three years and six months since construction began
17:00the nancy and rich kinder building is complete and open to the public
17:07it's so beautiful it's definitely a museum riley you go to visit for the art inside but also the outside
17:15inside the exciting gallery spaces are brightened by a shell of over a thousand glass tubes it feels very
17:23open the place is designed in a way that it makes the navigation very easy and deep beneath the water
17:30table day glow tunnels doubling as gallery spaces connect the campus's different buildings
17:36i love the building and i think people really love it my good friend said steven it's the best museum you
17:46ever did and if you think it looks good in the daylight wait until you see it at night for me to have the
17:53opportunity to work on a world-class building right here for my home city was a gift from god for me
18:10so sometimes even the most revolutionary structures don't stay pretty forever take the bayonne bridge
18:19state-of-the-art in 1931 but over time it became unable to support modern road and river traffic
18:25into one of america's busiest ports so naturally they got a facelift engineers literally raised the
18:32bridge deck 64 feet without ever closing into traffic when you look at this bridge now you can tell us
18:38have some work done but who cares it's fit for the future bayonne new jersey just across the water from
18:47new york city's staten island borough is home to an iconic 20th century design the bayonne bridge was
18:55seen as an engineering marvel when it was first opened it was the longest steel arch bridge in the world
19:01you're talking about a historical landmark for the city of bayonne for nearly a century the bridge
19:08welcomed international cargo into the port of new york and new jersey but in september 2007
19:17it's threatened by an engineering project 2 000 miles away in central america
19:27they were widening the panama canal to allow larger container ships to access
19:31ports around the world the panama canal connecting the atlantic and pacific oceans
19:38it's being expanded to allow huge new container ships to pass through
19:45ports around the world will need to make room for these new super tall vessels
19:54elsewhere they were just knocking down old bridges however with bayonne the authorities don't have that
20:00option part of the problem aside from the high cost and the long schedule was that the bridge itself
20:07was designated a national landmark so we actually would have to leave that in place but they have
20:14to find a way of letting these new super large ships through they dredged the channel made it deeper so
20:21ships might pass through at low tide but that only gets you so far they had dredged for years underneath
20:28there but still the bayonne bridge roadway was too low with no other option the team dreams up an engineering
20:36world first it came to the point where we have to raise that roadway it's an ambitious plan that will give
20:45this iconic piece of new jersey a brand new road 64 feet above the old one allowing the new super-sized
20:53cargo vessels to pass underneath
20:57sounds simple enough but it's not
21:02first they need to figure out how to keep the bridge open while creating piers to hold up the new
21:06approach roads and they must find a way to make the existing arch strong enough to support the additional
21:14road deck and all the construction gear next they need to erect the new road deck which will allow
21:22vehicles across and the super ships underneath finally they'll need to demolish the old road
21:29without unbalancing the bridge and keep it open to traffic at the same time keeping a bridge
21:35operational while you build a new bridge within its own structure my experience this has never been
21:41done before in new jersey engineers need to find a way to raise the height of the bayonne bridge so that
21:52huge new super ships can pass underneath and keep the roadway open there's only two ways in and out of
21:59bayonne economically you would have destroyed the city of bayonne if you close that bridge for two or three
22:05years but how do we put a roadway above a roadway safely and keep the roadway underneath open the team
22:13comes up with a bold solution the bridge carried two lanes in each direction before construction
22:19we reduced that to one lane in each direction so we could work on one half of the bridge
22:23while we carry traffic on the other half
22:25construction begins in july 2013 the first challenge is building the elevated ramps right next to people's
22:37homes the bridge connects to roads that sit on top of concrete piers a higher deck means steeper roads
22:47and much taller piers and so these approach roads need to be much longer stretching into the neighborhood
22:56in fact the approach ramps will each stretch around half a mile into residential areas and be supported
23:03on 24 new piers it's a big dirty job to build the pier to support the approach structure we would utilize
23:14a huge drill rig with a six foot diameter drill to drill 20 feet down through the earth into bedrock
23:21then we inserted a cage of steel and poured concrete in there and then we would stack these precast hollow
23:28concrete segments in some cases that were 100 tons as the columns grow so does the anger of local residents
23:37the first time i had a meeting i was mayor a couple weeks someone raised their hand and started screaming and
23:42yelling the amount of noise you know when they were pile driving and couldn't use their swimming pools in
23:51the summertime because of the amount of dust and everything that was being created it was an everyday battle
23:58fortunately the next stage involved using sections of the bridge made 300 miles away in virginia
24:05so by using precast concrete for the structure you actually remove the concrete trucks the the placement the forming of it the rebar
24:17and then there's no cure time so the erection is a lot quicker
24:23with the approach ramps under construction attention turns to the next challenge how to build the new bridge deck
24:30the original deck 64 feet above the existing one so the original deck in the arch itself it is suspended by
24:38suspender cables because it's a national historic civil engineering landmark the new roadway needs to be
24:45hung in exactly the same way at one point we had two decks on the same bridge we had the existing deck and we
24:52had the new higher deck so the arch has to carry two live roadways plus the construction equipment plus all our
24:59other people that is a lot of weight part of the solution turns out to be a stroke of luck
25:06we found out the original arch was designed for two tracks of heavy freight railroad but it never
25:13got built so we were able to take advantage of that strength and use it for the second deck
25:20even then the team needs to further strengthen the old arch we did that by using lidar
25:26laser scanning the home bridge so you know where every nut and bolt is
25:33you'd have to knock out the existing rivets then you would bring these steel plates that
25:39was specifically designed to fit exactly over the holes of the existing rivets we'd line them up and
25:44then we would put high strength bolts through to increase the integrity of the bridge and allow it to
25:50handle the higher weight of carrying two decks at one time in february 2017 the new deck is open to traffic
26:02and work begins removing the old deck which has to be done before the arrival of the first new giant
26:09container ship
26:09our next task was to remove 10 000 tons of steel and concrete from the existing roadway
26:20doing this could unbalance the bridge and cause irreparable damage we would working from the center
26:27back towards the approaches removing concrete steel and working backwards to create that opening
26:34there's also danger in demolishing the old deck above a very busy river the challenge of this work is
26:41working at height hundreds of feet above the water you can't have a fear of heights that has to be in
26:47your nature to really get this job done
26:52in new jersey the team tasked with raising the height of the bayonne bridge faces their final challenge
27:00removing the old deck before the arrival of the first new super ship this is the world's busiest
27:06shipping channel if anything should fall into the waterway it was a significant danger to the
27:12ships and the crews passing below that would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars of impact
27:17to these shipping companies and to the region
27:22by september 2017 the original bridge deck is completely removed the first huge
27:29new container ship arrives and attempts to pass underneath
27:35the atmosphere on the opening day for shipping traffic was really spectacular
27:42we have a park right on the water there everybody just lined the whole shoreline
27:46and and watched as the ship came down when you see a ship that large of teddy roosevelt come through
27:52and it's a big ship
27:59it almost looked like it wasn't going to fit under the bayonne bridge and i really got nervous at that
28:04point i'm like oh my god tell me that we spent all this money to raise the bridge
28:07and this ship's not going to fit there
28:19and watched it collide effortlessly under the new
28:22raised bridge it was an amazing experience
28:26but it did yes there was a cheer on our vessel it was like mission accomplished
28:31raising the bayonne bridge has meant the port of new york and new jersey can now handle some 200
28:38billion u.s dollars worth of goods every year since the bridge has been raised we have definitely seen
28:46the benefits economically the port commerce that comes in the amount of jobs it creates
28:51it's only going to get better and better for this area it's a project that not only benefits the local community
29:00but it also showcases world-class engineering and ingenuity at its finest
29:07it was a very difficult project and it's a success for everyone involved so i'm very proud of it
29:21the berlin wall once an eyesore with a dark history was the backdrop when a media company
29:31chose to rebuild its headquarters right next to it their vision to create a symbol of everything the
29:36wall stood against peace hope and unity once you get a glimpse of this building there is no doubt
29:43that they succeeded in creating a structure that stands as a testament to innovation resilience
29:48and the power of design to help heal old wounds
29:53in 2020 germany's capital berlin is celebrating 30 years of the country's reunification
30:01and a bold new building the axel springer neubau home to a german media empire is ready to mark the occasion
30:11i really felt this need to create something that is truly contemporary cutting edge architecture ahead of the curve
30:21its location couldn't be more symbolic where the berlin wall once divided the city in two
30:27is located directly on the death strip on the former east germany designing a place steeped in history
30:36isn't just about putting up steel and concrete it's about capturing its soul every little detail has to
30:43honor the legacy that came before it that's the true test of an architect on a project like this
30:49the idea comes about in 2013 with a competition for a building that will honor berlin's past
30:58while representing the digital future of one of germany's biggest media and technology companies
31:05i said in the briefing i want to have a building that is so beautiful that we will have car accidents in
31:10front of the building because people are looking to the building renowned architects oma famous for its
31:17stunning seattle central library win the contract based on a design that makes a virtue of the city's
31:25troubled history our site is exactly located where the previous wall between east and west berlin was
31:34on either side of the wall there was that kind of death zone where people were not allowed to walk
31:40their idea is for a huge open plan glass atrium that will represent the no man's land that once divided the city
31:50measuring 13 stories it's a very tall building for berlin
31:56normally buildings in berlin are 70 feet in a height and this is the maximum line for the height of the
32:02buildings at 150 feet high the design looks destined to fail we said well i'm not so optimistic that the
32:11berlin senate will approve that because they're very strict about it but then the senator who was in
32:18charge for that she said okay in this case we have to make an exception because it is so convincing
32:22it is so strikingly beautiful and special that we approve that the unifying design will transform berlin
32:32right where it was once divided a stunning media headquarters with a massive 11-story glass atrium
32:40at its center the new building will be a physical representation of the coming together of east and west berlin
32:48first they will have to navigate a tiny building site in the heart of berlin
32:57then they'll need to build a structure with a 150 foot high void at its center without it collapsing in
33:04on itself next they have to construct a delicate glass facade that can withstand berlin's fiercest weather
33:13finally they must ensure that the 3 500 workers can escape the huge open plan office in the event of a fire
33:25when i first saw the design of this building i thought oh my god we can't build it how it is impossible
33:33on may 3rd 2016 construction begins the first challenge excavating a hundred thousand tons of earth
33:43that's 5 500 truck loads through berlin's residential neighborhoods day by day there was a caravan of trucks
33:52coming in minimizing disruption to the residents takes meticulous planning the construction company
34:00told all the truck drivers you had to come in in this tight 15 minutes time slot
34:04if you don't come in in this time slot then we will talk to you very very clear that you have to be here in your time slot
34:17nine months later with the site excavated they face their next hurdle
34:23building on a plot that's smaller than two american football fields in a tightly packed city center
34:29standard construction cranes with fixed arms don't really work in tight spaces where there's not
34:37enough room for them to turn without colliding
34:42that's why they went with the luffing jib cranes these are built for tight quarters they can angle
34:50their arm and their booms up and down without smashing into everything around it
34:56you have to work with them like in like an orchestra and that means very precise sequencing
35:02so the crane drivers had to be trained you move now and you don't move now they have to be very careful
35:09by january 2018 the lower floors are in place
35:16now their attention turns to the central atrium that will honor the city's history
35:20of once being divided between communist-controlled east berlin and the allies who controlled the west
35:30during this time newspaper publisher axel springer built his original company headquarters in west
35:36berlin right next to the border with the communist east
35:41axel springer wanted to be here because this is the old media part of of berlin
35:47when the headquarters is completed in 1966 it's visible across the berlin wall standing as a beacon
35:56for democracy you want to fight for freedom and democracy with our newspapers here on the pole position
36:04by the border the media magnate is determined that his homeland will one day be whole again
36:11actually springer believed in the german unification and he was called a fool for his belief
36:19springer never lives to see his dream come true
36:24the berlin wall comes down in 1989 four years after his death fast forward 30 years and the 150-foot
36:34atrium of the new headquarters now under construction will stand as a tribute to both unified germany
36:41and the dreams of axel springer
36:46but with a huge hole at the center of the building there's nothing to hold up the upper floors and roof
36:52until it's complete a typical building has a grid of columns spaced every nine meters or so
36:59that supports the floor plates top to bottom but if you want a big atrium in the middle of your
37:06building you need another way of supporting those upper floors otherwise that wonderful open space
37:11becomes a forest of columns
37:16in berlin germany the team building the axel springer neuval's 150 foot tall atrium must find a way to
37:23support the roof and upper floors we needed a lot of scaffolding to hold up the upper half of the
37:30building and they mean a lot it was roughly 132 000 cubic meters of scaffolding which had to be filled
37:43we built that up until we reached the roof the scaffolding growing taller with every floor we built in
37:50it's slow progress but as the scaffold grows the team is able to build the top floors and roof that
37:59will enclose the atrium in some places we're hanging four floors in some places we're hanging two floors
38:08because of the shape of the atrium that we're carving out by september 2018 the upper floors are in place
38:15the next engineering challenge making sure they stay there when the scaffolding comes down
38:24there aren't enough columns to support the upper floors from below so they have to hold them in
38:29place from above using something called a transfer structure a heavy load steel grid built into the roof
38:36we've effectively built a table at roof level and we're hanging the upper floors from that table top
38:46it's a brilliant piece of engineering if it works you never really know if a transfer structure can hold
38:56the load until you strip the scaffolding away that's the heart-stopping moment of truth and there's no safety net
39:06the crew used powerful hydraulic presses to jack those floors up the upper five floors were lifted for
39:15roughly an inch they peeled away one layer of the scaffold then slowly eased off the hydraulic presses
39:24letting the steel frame gradually take the weight this is a moment where we thought perhaps the whole
39:31building is going to crash now
39:37and it didn't there was quite a moment
39:42by october 2018 the huge shell of the atrium is in place and the team faces its next challenge
39:52the 150 foot high glass window needs to be strong enough to survive winds that can reach close to 80 miles
39:59per hour in a storm
40:03stiffness is important to plus a thin piece of glass maybe over a few meters the wind blows on it
40:10you don't really notice you make that glass bigger and bigger all of a sudden you know it moves it moves
40:16alarmingly to increase the stiffness of the glass facade the team turns to some very simple but effective
40:24physics think of this sheet of paper like a flat wall of glass too much force and it buckles and gives way
40:33but if you corrugate the surface of that glass it spreads the force evenly through the ridges and valleys
40:39making it able to withstand the same kind of force
40:42we modeled it physically you could already see how much stiffness that simple corrugation created
40:55the corrugated window requires over 1500 panes of glass with no two alike
41:00and engineered to fit within a bespoke 3d superframe was really a bit afraid isn't it too complicated to
41:08erect a facade like this it takes nine months using a team of a hundred fitters to piece the complex
41:153d facade together from bottom to top it worked like a puzzle but really smooth that the facade grew up
41:23in a way organic so it was really happy to see how it grew up with the atrium almost complete and just
41:33three months until opening the team faces its next obstacle how to control a fire in an open space that
41:43measures over four million cubic feet atriums and and fire they don't really go well together
41:52without internal walls the smoke can spread rapidly but their plan is to try to turn the void to their
42:00advantage can we not use the atrium as one big chimney so we will make sure that the smoke will only
42:07collect on the upper part of the atrium it's a radical idea that calls for some serious equipment
42:16they installed massive smoke extractor fans in the roof that can clear smoke from the lower atrium
42:22in a matter of minutes it's something new and something that has never been done before
42:30so to prove it works they have to conduct a live fire test
42:34the fire started and everything was full you can't see people standing just a few meters beside you
42:46i was praying that these machines please start and that everything works out
42:52if it fails the building can't open and then you hear the sound of the machines starting and the
43:00fog lifts and lift that was a good day
43:11in spring 2020
43:15after three years of painstaking construction
43:19the 600 000 square foot axel springer neubau
43:22opens for business it was a very emotional moment a building that not only looks to the future
43:33but is connected to the past and heals the space where the wall once divided the city
43:42i think we're extremely proud on on what we've achieved well it's just it's just great it's
43:48fantastic it has exactly the right balance and i'm biased but i uh i love it in every corner
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