All language subtitles for How.Did.They.Build.That.S04E06.Shipyards.and.Slender.Builds.1080p.FUBO.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-FFG_track3_[eng]

How do you
build a luxury high-rise

out of 1,200 pieces of wood
that won’t go up in flames?

Nobody to date had tried
to build mass timber

at any kind of height,
at least in the U.S.

How do you save a piece
of decaying inner-city dockland

By creating cutting-edge office
the length of a city block.

I told them,
I like to build on the track.

I said,
"You can’t demolish history."

And how do you pull off

constructing the tallest building

on the smallest footprint
in the world?

We
sort of thought,

"Well, why not 20, why not 30,
why not 40 stories?"

You know, how high
could we actually go?

Welcome to a world
where anything is possible.

The space where innovation
and creativity collide.

This isn’t just impressive,
it’s revolutionary.

Where the only limit
is human imagination.

This wasn’t just
ambitious, it was audacious.

No one had ever attempted
anything like it.

Unpacking the miracles
and mysteries of construction.

Sometimes
buildings can change the world.

And this is one of them.

To ask...
How Did They Build That?

When was the last time you saw
a skyscraper made of wood?

I know, I know,
it sounds ridiculous.

There’s a reason skyscrapers
aren’t made from wood.

Just like there’s
a reason cars aren’t made from,

say, cookie dough.

But harness
the latest technology,

and it turns out anything
would be possible.

As populations grow
and space runs short,

we’re no longer building out.

We’re building up.

And after a century
of skyscraper construction,

we’re pretty sure
what they should be made of.

There are, generally speaking,
two types of tall buildings.

Office buildings
are built out of steel,

and tall residential buildings
are typically built

out of post-tension
or cast-in-place concrete.

They’re materials
we’ve grown to trust

and rely on for
very good reasons.

The Great Fire of Chicago
in 1871

saw over 17,000 buildings
burnt to the ground.

300 people lost their lives.
And that changed regulations

so all buildings had to be
built with fireproof material.

Along with
strength and flexibility,

this made concrete and steel

pretty much perfect
building materials,

shaping the way cities
have been built across the U.S.

But there is a cost.

Producing concrete
and steel is responsible

for about 15%
of the world’s CO2 emissions.

So it’s massively important

for our future
that we find alternatives.

In the 2010s,
Tim Gokhman is eyeing up a plot

ripe for development and makes
move that could do exactly that

We wanted to build a luxury,

high-rise apartment building
in Milwaukee.

The initial
designs were concrete.

But in 2017,
I read an online article

about a mass timber tower, and
that got our imagination going.

What if you could
build skyscrapers out of wood?

It’s readily available,

renewable, cost-effective,
and beautiful.

Doing it with
box-standard timber

would be challenging,
to say the least.

It’s highly flammable.
You’d need huge lengths

of super-straight timber,
and it isn’t reliably strong.

But in Europe,
they were building

with a material
called mass timber.

Mass timber construction

has been around probably
since the early 1990s.

The idea being that there aren’t
a lot of very large trees,

so sometimes it’s challenging
to incorporate heavy timber.

But if you can
take smaller trees,

glue them together,
manufacture them,

you can create these
mass timber,

larger elements
for construction.

Imagine, if you will,
a sort of super-timber.

It’s made by gluing together
multiple layers of wood

under pressure,
so what you end up with

is even stronger
than regular timber.

In fact, it can even be
stronger than steel.

Despite the fact that
no one makes mass timber

at this scale in the U.S., and
it doesn’t pass the fire codes

for tall buildings there,

Tim decides it’s a
really good idea

to build a 284-foot-tall
luxury apartment skyscraper

in the heart
of downtown Milwaukee.

It’ll be called Ascent Tower.

That’s if they
can convince everyone

a wooden skeleton will be stron
enough and won’t be a fire risk

Having figured out how to creat
a solid foundation for the towe

that also allows for
six levels of parking,

they’ll need to organize the
1,200 individually made pieces

of this mass timber
jigsaw puzzle

ready to slide into place.

And they’ll need to be prepared
because in theory,

it could go up pretty quickly.

Then it will be
covered in glass,

creating an extraordinary
and unique tower.

That’s if the authorities
will let them build it.

Nobody to date had tried

to build mass timber at any
kind of height in the U.S.

In fact,
building codes don’t exist

for a tower like this.

The class of construction that
this building would fall into

would be limited to
five floors of timber framing,

and up to 85 feet
in total height.

This building needs
to be almost 200 feet taller,

so that means convincing the
city to change the rules.

If you can prove that
you’re as safe or safer

than those more well-understood
construction typologies,

then they can allow you
a path to approval.

So the good news is
it’s not impossible.

But the path to approval

means proving that
the wood won’t burn.

Effectively,
we took different samples

of different
mass timber members,

and they put them in a furnace
so that they could measure

how quickly did that
char rate grow.

If it burns too fast,

the whole project
could go up in flames.

What we have here is one of
nine glue-laminated columns

that was placed into a
burn chamber

and then was subjected
to fires for three hours

of approximately
1,100 degrees Fahrenheit.

And what they found was that
the center of the column

remained at
75 degrees Fahrenheit.

That temperature’s
important because that’s

the temperature at which
the wood inside

is still structurally viable.

So from a structural engineering
perspective,

there’s enough area left
on the inside after this char

as to hold up the structure.

It’s great news,
and there’s more to come.

Amazingly,
they found that mass timber

is more predictable
in a blaze than steel.

Char actually protects
and insulates the material,

but the inside of the wood is
at a reasonable temperature,

maintains its
structural integrity.

Naturally, plants
contain something called lignin

in their cell walls, and that’s
what gives wood its strength.

It also turns out that lignin
is extremely heat-resistant,

so burnt wood on the outside
protects the timber inside.

It’s a
big win for the team.

Now, they just need
a mass timber manufacturer

who can take on the job.

There wasn’t
really capacity in the U.S.

to produce this volume
of mass timber at one time.

And so ultimately,
our partners led us

to fabricators in Austria,

which is actually generally
where this technology

sort of emerged in the
late 80s and early 90s.

This construction method
is so precisely prepared

that a mass timber home
like the German Huf Haus

can be assembled
in a matter of days.

You are meticulously
designing every last detail

of the entire building
beforehand.

Applying this
technique to Ascent

could see the building fly up,

provided they get
every detail right.

Whether it’s
ducts, risers, pipes, shafts,

you can imagine if those
are not in the right spot,

there’s going to be
some challenges,

there’s going to be some rework,

there’s going to be
some problems.

In October 2020,

work starts
on the concrete foundation.

And even here, the upside
of mass timber starts to show.

One of the big benefits
of mass timber

is that it weighs so much less

than if you were using
traditional materials.

So the foundations don’t have to
be as strong to do the job.

We had to drive 100
fewer piles than we would have

if this had been
a concrete building,

which immediately saved
a month on the project schedule.

Now, they can
start building upwards.

Because the first six stories

are entirely
open to the elements,

they decide
to keep it old school.

The bottom six stories
of Ascent

are parking structures.
If you thought hypothetically,

"Could you have done it
out of mass timber?"

The answer is yes, structurally.

However, when you’re
talking about parking,

particularly being in Milwaukee
we have cold winters.

It would be additional cost,
additional maintenance

over the life of the structure.

That versus a post-tension
concrete structure.

Then, in June 2021,
the fun begins

as the team turns its attention
to the timber tower.

Building with mass
timber can be over 25% faster

than regular construction,
but to pull that off,

everything needs to be planned
with military precision.

Including dealing with the
1,273 pieces of mass timber

that are on their way
to the U.S.

One big problem
with downtown sites is space.

Where do you put all the pieces
of the jigsaw puzzle?

In Milwaukee,

the team building America’s
first wooden skyscraper

is working out where to hold
over 1,000 unique pieces

of mass timber
before they’re moved to site.

We’re so close to
the Port of Milwaukee,

so the port could
actually hold the pieces.

Which means on site,
they’re only dealing

with the
next piece of the puzzle.

They could
actually bring a semi that day

of the exact parts and pieces
they need,

drop them off out front,
have the crane pick them up,

and then put them on top, on
the level they were working on.

A team of up to 50 workers

constructed the
six concrete floors.

For the remaining 19, it’s
a different matter altogether.

We had a 12-man crew

for the entire duration
of the mass timber,

and that consisted of
five carpenters,

five ironworkers,
and two laborers.

But installing the
2,500 beams and columns

does take some
pretty serious screws.

So this is a
16 and seven-eighth screw,

and this was one of the
more typical screws that we had.

Each floor requires
around 1,200 of these screws

to hold it together.

Some of the screws
were so long,

they’d only be able to
drive 10 screws

before the battery
would need to be swapped out.

In order to keep
the project on schedule,

the team comes up
with a clever solution.

The guys came up
with these charging stations

that were essentially mobile.

Despite needing
over 12,000 battery recharges

for the drills
to fasten the 122,000 screws,

the building races up.

What we found is that
it took seven months

to build 19 floors
of mass timber

with less than a
quarter of the labor.

So the level of acceleration

in the construction
was spectacular.

By winter 2021,

Ascent is quickly approaching
its 290-foot limit

when the team grabs the chance

not just to be a first for
America, but for the world.

Once we
found out that we were

within about three feet
of the world record,

I went to the development team
and I said,

on the top floor of
the building,

we should make the roof do this.

And there it is.

The final piece is set
on December 17th, 2021,

just in time for the holidays.

For construction manager
Chris and his team,

it’s been a
transformational experience.

You know, it’s something
that I’ll never forget,

and Ascent is living proof

that you can build
a high-rise out of timber.

And in doing so,
perhaps it’ll change the way

other buildings
are made in the U.S.

Who knows where a rekindled lov
affair with wood could lead?

Our goal is to build
the best building possible

and decrease the use
of concrete and steel.

Over 25 stories
with 259 luxury apartments

and a pool on the seventh floor

this manages to be high-end
living with a low carbon impact

Both concrete and steel

have astonishingly large
carbon footprints.

Mass timber goes somewhat
the opposite way

in that it is in fact
a carbon sink

rather than a carbon producer.

It may have taken time

to embrace the idea
of a timber tower,

but Ascent gives a glimpse
into what the future may hold.

There are
so many benefits

from a
sustainability perspective

that it just makes
sense to utilize mass timber,

so to be a part of that
is really an honor.

They say beauty is in
the eye of the beholder,

and that’s certainly true
for buildings.

What might start out as an
eyesore can, with time,

blossom into the most
unexpected, beautiful bloom,

like an industrial duckling
transforming into a swan.

Case in point,
this once ugly dockside relic

now stands as a stunning vision
of the future.

This is Kraanspoor,
a transparent office

the length of
a typical Manhattan block,

built on top of old shipyard
crane tracks in the Netherlands

It will take
ten years to create.

It means fighting off
a demolition order

and cost 37 million US dollars.

But it’s a shining example
of what derelict docks

around the world could become,

because most of the city ports

that were once the arteries of
trade throughout the world

are now relics of a bygone era.

After World War II,

supertankers transformed shipping.

But their massive size required
deep water channels.

Old dockyards
just couldn’t keep up,

leaving them
abandoned and crumbling.

By the early 1980s,
the maritime city

of Amsterdam is full
of decaying dockyards.

All that remained were rusting
machinery and rotting buildings.

In the mid-90s,

after years of being
a derelict industrial zone,

the city has plans
to clear the docks.

But local architect Trude
Hooykaas has a different idea.

I took my bicycle.
It was a Sunday, it was August.

It was very warm, 30 degrees.

And there was a track
with two cranes on it.

Where the city sees a
rotting, disused port crane lin

Hooykaas spots
something special.

It was magic. I thought,
"No, it’s not. It’s not true.

I have to build on it."

"I will do it immediately."

The rebirth
of Amsterdam’s crane track,

known as Kraanspoor, will be
understated and elegant.

With three stories of
modern glass offices

sitting over the river,

it will honor the
past and the future.

Though, there will be
many hurdles to overcome.

First, they’ll have to remove
the two disintegrating cranes

without destroying
the entire structure.

And they’ll have to repair
the ancient foundation,

submerged five feet below
in the riverbed.

Then, they need to
work out how to

put a 5,000-ton
office building on top of legs

designed to carry
a fraction of that weight.

Finally, they’ll wrap the
office in heat-trapping glass,

preserving energy
as well as history.

But none of this
is going to be easy.

This is monumental.

An extraordinary vision,
not just of reclamation,

but of preserving a vital piece
of Amsterdam’s past.

Kraanspoor is set for
destruction at the end of 1997.

First, we had to fight against
the permit of demolition.

It was a race against time.

Trude marches to Amsterdam
City Council to make her case.

I told them,
I’d like to build on the track.

"Oh, no.
It’s out of the question."

Said, "Why?"

"Because we are going
to demolish it."

I said, "You can’t
demolish history,

"because it’s a
part of the harbor.

It’s the part of Amsterdam."
They thought, "She’s crazy."

It takes
over four years of lobbying

before the city agrees,

on the condition that Trude can
find someone to fund her vision

After that,
we made a huge model.

And ING Real Estate said,
"OK, we are going to build."

The budget to
bring the crane tracks

into the 21st century
is 37 million U.S. dollars.

But not all of it can be saved.

The cranes were in
a bad condition.

They were not maintained.
So, it’s erosion, rust.

The risk of wind
blowing them off

was too, yeah,
that was too risky.

Too dangerous
to try and disassemble,

the team looks to an old-school
method to take them down:

Dynamite.

A single mistake here
would have been devastating.

Cranes crashing into the ports.

Or worse, demolishing
the concrete structure itself.

the team transforming an old
crane track on the River Ij .

into a state-of-the-art office
building has called in

explosive experts to carefully
remove the cranes on top.

Explosives are actually
a precise tool when used right.

There’s an old technique

where they hollow out
the area to be demolished,

then pack it with metal
to focus the blast.

The team must work out
where to place the explosives

to within an eighth of an inch.

They lay the charges,
clear the area, then...

I was on a bit of a distance,

and I saw the two cranes,
like, in slow motion.

Yeah, it was strange to see.

It was all so sad.

The beautiful cranes,
like enormous birds, fell down.

There was just silence.

As the dust settles,

the team assesses
the rest of the structure.

We know the concrete was,

in some places,
not in too good condition.

You can see on its surface,
it’s a bit of a white spot,

but you don’t know how deep it
is within the concrete itself.

The symptoms
point to one thing.

Concrete cancer,
also known as ASR,

alkaline silica reaction,

occurs when stone and sand
in concrete react with cement,

absorbing water, causing it to
crack and break apart over time.

That was a very scary moment
because we didn’t know

if we could preserve
the whole building.

One of
the politicians called me.

"Hey, Trude,
what about Kraanspoor?"

"Oh, it’s fine. I’m just
talking with a developer."

It was not true at all.
I lied because

I don’t want to lose their faith
in the project, so I lied.

The only way to know
if the project can go ahead

is to see how deep
the concrete cancer goes.

Drilling through concrete
this dense

requires serious firepower.

A deep diamond-tipped drill
is key.

And it’s not just concrete.
It’s also reinforced with steel,

which helps the structure
to hold more weight.

If you cut that steel,
the whole thing could buckle.

To ensure
that doesn’t happen,

the team brings out
another tool from their arsenal

ground-penetrating radar.

By using that, you can know
where the reinforcement is,

and then you also know where
to drill and where not to drill.

Over the next three weeks,
they take 24 samples,

carefully managing to avoid
damaging the steel rebar inside

which are then analyzed.
Thankfully, it’s good news.

The investigation showed
that the structure,

it was, well, quite OK.

The source was underneath
the rail of the crane track,

so it was removed.

If the impact would
have been worse,

the Kraanspoor project
would have been dead.

While they repair
the concrete cancer,

the engineers move on
to the next challenge.

When you build
on top of this structure,

270 meters and
three floors high,

the wind is going
to push against the building,

which, of course, we had to do
something about the foundation.

Along with the weight
of the new building,

the additional area
being hit by the wind

will put some pretty serious
extra forces on the foundation.

Submerged five feet underwater,

the team constructs a cofferdam
around the building,

and pumps the water out
so they can be assessed.

We could walk on the ground,
of the River Ij,

which was very fascinating.

There on the riverbed,
they uncover the pile caps.

Pile caps take the weight of
Kraanspoor’s massive columns

and spread it across deep
piles in the River Ij.

But Kraanspoor is
about to get a lot heavier,

and that’s a problem.

The reinforcement in those
pile caps was not sufficient

to deal with the
new loads on the structure.

If the caps
aren’t strengthened,

they might split
under the weight.

We had to make a steel corset
around the foundation itself,

because otherwise
it could split.

Then, the plan is to
encase them in fresh concrete.

And even that’s not easy.

Layering
new concrete on old

is incredibly difficult.
It’s not like glue.

You can end up with
two blocks that aren’t bonded,

and if river water
gets in between,

the whole structure
could break apart.

To make sure it was
a right connection

between the two parts of it,
the new and the old part,

we blasted
with high-pressure water

to make sure every bit
was clean, you know?

Once they got rid of
all the river slime,

they have to roughen
the concrete surface

to give the new concrete
something to latch on to.

The men
were all dirty, you know,

when they came out.

It was not a nice job to deal
with, but we had to do it.

As the engineers finish
stabilizing the structure,

Trude is reassessing her design

I was looking at it,
and I thought,

"What’s missing?
What’s missing?"

It’s missing space.

It’s not interesting
to put a volume on it,

you have to make
a volume floating.

But floating the office
building will concentrate

the weight onto specific points

rather than spreading it
across the structure.

So we had to
reduce the weight to 50 percent.

In Amsterdam, the team
behind the redevelopment

of an old dockland crane track

must halve the weight
of the new office building

that will float above it.

It’s a massive challenge,

starting with
the steel structure.

H-beams
are super efficient.

They’re strong without using
more steel than needed,

which makes them lighter.

In September, the team
installs the first H-beams.

But on their own,

these won’t reduce
the weight enough.

They have to find more,
and turn to the floors,

because these are usually made
from reinforced concrete,

and that’s seriously heavy.

So we found this hollow floor
with steel beams,

and then you reduce
a lot of amount of weight.

Sections of this
lightweight flooring

are prefabricated off-site.

When they arrive,
the construction team is amazed

It was possible to handle
with one man,

one floor, never any heavier
than 50 kilograms.

It’s like a Lego system.
It’s done in a couple of months.

In April 2007,
the team is ready

to put the finishing touches
on this featherweight facility,

130,000 square feet of glass.

Well, glass is great because
it solved the weight problem,

but it creates another problem,
sun coming into the building.

Wrap a building in glass,

and you’ve basically built
a giant greenhouse.

Sunlight gets in
and heats everything up,

but that heat
has nowhere to escape.

To prevent the building
from becoming a heat trap,

the team turns to an innovative
new building technique.

To deal with that problem,

we have
the special double skin facade.

It’s fretted glass
with a screening on it

to protect the building
from the sun,

but to have enough
daylight coming in.

It’s an ingenious system,
where the gap

between the two layers of
the facade acts like a buffer,

preventing heat gain
in the summer

and heat loss in the winter.

It’s also the finishing touch
to Kraanspoor’s reinvention.

In 2007, Trude’s
redeveloped office is complete,

and the ugly duckling
has become a swan.

Kraanspoor proves you don’t
have to flatten history

to move forward. You can
build right on top of it.

Narrowly
avoiding demolition,

Kraanspoor has a new purpose.

It was our fight
to retain this building.

When I visited for
the first time,

it was a wasteland
or no man’s land.

Now you see students,
creative industry, and housing.

It’s incredible
to work at Kraanspoor.

When I first
saw the building,

I was like, "Wow,
you don’t see this quite often."

I actually thought
it was awesome.

The developer told me,
"You are too stubborn."

And he was right. Never give up.

Kraanspoor, it’s an icon.

It’s an act of sustainability
to preserve.

You have
to know where you come from.

You can’t make future
that’s not rooted in the past.

Amsterdam doesn’t exist at all
without the water.

Melbourne, Australia is buzzing,
bustling, and above all, busy.

So when they wanted to create
a stunning residential building

in the city’s business district,
there were two simple rules.

You can’t build out,
so you gotta go up.

It’s 2010, and Melbourne
developer Peter Hart

is looking to fulfil
a childhood dream

Ever since I was young,

I’ve been interested in tall
buildings. In my early 20s,

I went to New York, went to
the World Trade Center,

went to Rockefeller Center
at the same time.

Looked up and just loved
the concept of tall buildings.

Peter’s love of towers

agrees with the changing needs
of a growing city.

In order to combat urban sprawl,
Melbourne actually

came up with a plan for
the future of the city in 2002.

Part of their solution
is encouraging

high-density development in key
areas like the city center.

The challenge
for a small developer

is finding an affordable site
to build big on.

They’re rare. When they come up,
you’ve got to be ready to act.

So when Peter
finds an old pub

on a tiny plot
just 20 feet wide,

he sees the opportunity
to create something special.

When I look at building sites
as a developer,

I look at the gaps.
I look at what’s not there.

The problem is that to
make the figures add up,

Peter has to build big
on the tiny plot.

And that means one thing.

The reason we
built so tall

is to maximize the land value.
The taller it was,

the more feasible it was going
to be at the end of the day.

So I had to think
out of the box.

Luckily, he turns to
architect James Pearce,

who loves nothing
more than a challenge.

The pub actually was
a three-story building,

and Peter came into the office

thinking he might be able to
get a few more levels on it,

about ten stories.

But we sort of thought,
"Well, why not 20?

Why not 30? Why not 40 stories?"

You know, how high
could we actually go?

So once
I bought the site,

I had my own concept
of what I wanted to do.

I’m an engineer.

My projects need architecture
to make them work.

So we sat down together
at a cafe near the site

with a piece of paper and a
pencil, and he drew the tower.

And I was sold.

The building’s success

rests on something
engineers call slenderness.

How slender a building
is determines how stable it is.

Or not.

The key to skyscraper
design comes down to one thing,

the ratio of height to width.

For instance,
the Empire State Building

is about three times taller
than its base width.

That’s pretty stable
and balanced.

But when you have
something extreme,

like the Burj Khalifa in Dubai,

which is nearly nine times
taller than it is wide,

that’s really
pushing the limits.

Building slender
brings with it

its own set of challenges.

And at about 290 feet high
and 21 feet wide,

Phoenix Tower
is definitely going to be that.

We pulled out our iPhones,

and we realized that
the dimensions,

the slenderness of an iPhone
is about 11 to one.

And so you can get
a good picture

of what the tower’s
going to look like,

and it’s pretty slender
when you hold your phone up.

And it will be a first,
because this has never been don

on a site of this size.
The 28-story high rise

will have a single apartment
on each floor.

The starting point,
as with any building,

will be laying
a solid foundation.

But with barely enough room
to move,

the challenge will be
how to do it.

Then they need to work out how
to make the tower tough enough

so despite being slender,
it stands up

and also leaves enough room
inside for someone to live.

Then they must provide
onsite parking,

with no basement
to put a garage.

They also need to stop it
from swaying in the wind,

a particular problem
with slender towers.

And they need to make
it look beautiful.

It’s a list
as tall as the building.

There were many risky
construction techniques

that made things very difficult.

Despite the obvious
constraints, on March 23, 2012,

work begins
demolishing the old pub.

And the team is thinking
about the challenges ahead.

At the time,
it was the tallest building

on the smallest footprint
in the world.

Looking at the building,
it just intrigued me.

There’s a real challenge.

The first of which is
how to construct the foundation

There’s very large forces
from the tall,

skinny structure at the base,
and thus piles were needed.

In fact, they were going
to need to create 21 piles

going 50 feet into the ground.

But the tiny site throws up
the first of many issues.

The piling rigs are large,
and the piling rigs

really had a lot of trouble
fitting into this site.

It’s beginning
to look like

the team has bitten off
more than they can chew.

We’re up against
old buildings,

and they’re very fragile.
And the risks were great.

The
foundation is everything.

And just one mistake

could compromise the stability
of the entire building.

In Melbourne,
Australia, the team

behind building the tallest
tower on the smallest footprint

must find a way to drill
21 foundation piles

into a plot just 20 feet wide

without damaging
the surrounding buildings.

The key to everything here

was about sequencing work
in that confined space.

The machinery obviously needed

to swing and rotate
to drill the holes.

So the sequencing
of each pile was quite complex.

In July 2012,
after four months

of careful
maneuvering and piling,

they face the next challenge.

Skyscrapers are very sensitive,

in terms of their
stiffness and strength.

Most skyscrapers rely on

a slender concrete column
right down the middle,

like a strong backbone,
holding everything upright.

But there’s a problem
with doing that here.

The reality
is in this building,

at 6.7 meters wide,
the space is at a premium.

A traditional core
will take up too much room.

So they turn
the problem inside out.

Basically, this whole building
is one big core.

Instead of a core wall
in the middle,

they use the
building’s exterior walls.

And to make it even stronger,

some of the interior walls
will act as bracing.

It’s a clever
engineering solution

that allows them to
maximize the floor space

while giving the tower
its strength.

But now,
they have to build it.

The issue is constructing tower
means using cranes.

Pragmatically,
there is no way a crane

could have gone external of
the building on that site.

The only place the crane
can fit is inside the structure

Which
in itself presented

aa number of challenges,
purely because of the size.

With the crane
taking up valuable space,

they have to build around it,
one floor at a time,

using a clever system
called jump form.

They build these
structures using huge molds,

basically massive forms
that they fill with concrete.

Once it hardens,
powerful hydraulic rams

push the entire mold
up to the next level,

and they repeat the process
over and over,

all the way to the top.

The engineering of this
jump form was just amazing,

because as
the building jumped up,

they still needed
to lower through that jump form

precast panels and other
elements that would make up

the internal structure
of the building.

Floor by floor,
the structure takes shape,

and the team turns its attentio
to their next challenge.

Where do you put 27 car parking
spaces when there’s no basement?

Peter’s determined
that the team finds a way.

At the very beginning
of the project,

we had a rather wild idea,
which was that people might

drive in onto a car lift
and get lifted up

to their apartment and then
drive their car onto a balcony.

Get out of your car
and into your front door.

The solution they
settle on is just as nuts.

The rear of the building

was designed
as a car stacker system.

The cars are
stacked mechanically

and then delivered
back to the base,

turned in a turntable
and exiting the building.

This will be

Melbourne’s first fully
automatic parking system,

with spaces for cars
stacked on 13 levels.

It will also be designed
and built in Germany,

10,000 miles away.

They make their own steel
in Stuttgart.

They make their own motors
up the road in Stuttgart.

Everything comes out
of Germany straight to here.

While that’s going on,
in Melbourne,

the structure reaches
its full 290 feet.

And the downside of using an
external concrete core

becomes evident.

From an
architectural point of view,

it was what to do
with those side walls.

They should have some sort
of texture or pattern to them.

They can’t just be plain.

A graphic designer
that we really love working wit

is a guy called Gary.

So we invited him to have a
think about what sort

of pattern or graphic might go
on the sides of the building.

Gary’s big idea is
to create a weaving ribbon

of blue steel
running up the building,

though nobody’s quite sure why.

When you press Gary for
what’s the blue ribbon about,

and he sort of
shrugs his shoulders,

and he’s not really sure.

And we said, "Well, could
it be like a city skyline sort

of turned on its side?"

And he said,
"Yeah, it could be that."

So where the
balconies stick out,

the ribbon sort of grabs them

so that it’s not just
purely stuck on the building,

it’s an integrated part.

And it has some lighting
behind it at night

so that it sort of glows.

In 2014, 23 months
after the first piles were sunk

The Phoenix is finally finished

The whole process was
a great dream come true.

It was a great success.

Measuring 28 stories tall,
the 28 luxury apartments

also offer a state-of-the-art
car parking system,

ingenuously built
inside a 20-foot cylinder.

I think it’s the
coolest mechanical device

I’ve ever seen. You know, you
park your car, you get out,

you swipe,
and you go to your apartment.

Little knowing that
your car’s going to be put away

It could be ten stories
in the air.

And when you come back down,
you swipe again,

and it presents itself to you,

turned around,
ready to drive out.

If there’s one thing
about slender buildings,

they move more
than other towers in the wind.

To compensate, The Phoenix

has an 8,000-gallon
liquid-tuned mass damper,

which for the most part
seems to be doing its job.

The only time I can recall
one of the residents saying

that they noticed
the sway of the building

was on some windy nights.

There was a pendant light
over a round dining table.

You would actually see the
pendant just very slowly moving.

So when we’re designing tall,
skinny buildings,

we shouldn’t have
chandeliers or hanging lights.

We should have them all fixed.

Above all,
the slender Phoenix,

with its distinctive
blue steel ribbon,

makes a big impression
on its much bigger neighbors.

The funny
thing about this building

is when I’m walking
along the street,

I do hear people say,
"Wow, look at that building."

And then I almost want
to say to them, "I live there."

We had always considered
living in this building.

We actually drove
past it many times

whilst it was being constructed

There’s so much
natural light comes in

from all directions
throughout the day.

The fact that you get more
than a 180-degree view

down to docklands through to
the parklands is quite amazing.

I think the Phoenix building
has set an interesting challenge

to the industry.

How do we build
difficult buildings

in tight contexts
that stack up economically?

With his dream realized,

Peter’s not looking
to take the credit.

I won’t be remembered
as the developer.

Like, you don’t remember who
commissioned the Mona Lisa.

So I think The Phoenix Tower
will survive, you know,

as the architect’s building,
and not mine.

And I’m ok with it.