MegaStructures - Season 5
Episode List
E1 - Grand Canyon Skywalk
Aired: December 30, 2008
E2 - Ultimate Skyscraper
Aired: January 09, 2008
E3 - Shanghai Super Tower
Aired: May 14, 2008
The design and construction of the Shanghai World Financial Centre which, at 101 floors high, will be China's tallest structure.
E4 - Beijing Water Cube
Aired: May 21, 2008
Just in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, workers are feverishly putting the finishing touches on the National Aquatics Centre – the Beijing Water Cube. A stroke of design genius, this Olympic Megastructure is a steel honeycomb-like frame enclosed entirely by a unique skin, modelled after soap bubbles. Using 90 kilometres worth of steel in 22,000 beams following no conventional straight lines, the Beijing Water Cube must be topped with 100,000 square metres of bubbles. Looking for a truly unique covering, the design team focuses on ETFE – a light-weight plastic invented to protect spaceships from cosmic radiation. Among ETFE’s unique properties, dot patterns on its surface can trap solar energy in the winter and reflect solar energy in the summer, keeping the building cool. The Beijing Water Cube is the largest ETFE construction in the world, and because of its honeycomb-like structure, 3,500 ETFE bubbles must be cut individually, and sized. Factor in that the dimensions have been created in Germany and must be translated into a Chinese database and the Beijing Water Cube becomes a bit of a logistical nightmare. Beijing’s Water Cube represents a true morphing of molecular science, architecture and structural engineering.
E5 - Sinking an Aircraft Carrier
Aired: May 29, 2008
A specialist demolition team attempt to create the largest artificial reef in the world by sinking the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany. As they battle through thick steel plating and hazardous waste, the workers are aided by marine architects, divers, engineering units and local authorities.
E6 - Sinking an Aircraft Carrier
Aired: May 29, 2008
Looks at the technological designs and construction of the huge cruiseliner "Freedom of the Seas".
E8 - Icelandic Super Dam
Aired: June 18, 2008
This episode looks at the Karahnjukar Hydroelectric Project in Iceland - an audacious engineering feat that includes the building of Europe's highest dam, the drilling of 30-mile-long tunnels and the construction of a gigantic underground power plant.
E9 - Beijing Water Cube
Aired: May 21, 2008
2010 environmental improvement plan in Beijing, China
E10 - Shanghai Super Tower
Aired: May 14, 2008
The renovated California Academy of Sciences - the world's largest green public building - emerges from the landscape of Golden Gate Park. Viewed from the air, the undulating living roof resembles a piece of the park flying as if by magic.
E11 - Bridge Breakdown
Aired: September 10, 2008
A historic bridge is being taken down and recycled, but the demolition team faces challenges while doing it.
E12 - Deep Earth Drillers
Aired: December 20, 2008
Mega Green Tech is in search of geothermal power.
E13 - Icelandic Super Dam
Aired: June 18, 2008
A team of experts mobilises to demolish, excavate and recycle a 25,000 ton dam built of concrete and steel. The pressure is on: they have just half the time needed to complete the job. Worse yet, their biggest challenge stands behind the old dam – one million cubic yards of boulders, gravel and sand that the river has stacked against it for nearly a century. To remove this blockade, the team gambles on a radical, dangerous plan that's never been tried before: turning the energy of a perfect storm against the debris. If they are not successful, a generation of endangered salmon returning to spawn may be wiped out.
E14 - World Trade Center Bahrain
Aired: Unknown
E15 - Atom Smasher
Aired: January 08, 2008
The Large Hadron Collider is a titan of science. Built on an unsurpassed scale, scientists aim to capture the smallest particles in the universe.
E21 - South Pole Station
Aired: January 09, 2008
E22 - The World's Biggest Cruiseliner
Aired: June 04, 2008
Looks at the technological designs and construction of the huge cruiseliner "Freedom of the Seas".
E23 - Beijing Olympic Stadium (Building Green Beijing)
Aired: August 05, 2008
2010 environmental improvement plan in Beijing, China
E24 - Impossible Build
Aired: September 03, 2008
The renovated California Academy of Sciences - the world's largest green public building - emerges from the landscape of Golden Gate Park. Viewed from the air, the undulating living roof resembles a piece of the park flying as if by magic.
E25 - World Trade Center Bahrain
Aired: January 03, 2009