Extreme Engineering

Overhauling the San Francisco Bay Bridge is the biggest construction projects in the US.

Travel to the deepest place on Earth, Johannesburg, South Africa's Mponeng Gold Mine.

In an attempt to save the city from another disaster, New Orleans is building the world's strongest hurricane protection system, including the largest storm surge barrier ever built and radical hurricane resistant homes.

The world's tallest twisting structure, Kuwait's Al Hamra Tower, is looked at.

Rio de Janeiro has frequent widespread blackouts. So Brazil is building one of the largest hydroelectric projects in the world, consisting of two hydroelectric dam's (Anta and Simplício).

Singapore's Skypark will hang 650 feet in the air on top of 3 skyscrapers.

The LPD17 is a new class of warship.

Building the Stonecutters Bridge.

The CityCenter development in Las Vegas aspires to change the desert vacationland into a continental metropolis

Building the new Cowboys Stadium

Building a Trump's Tower in Chicago

Construction of hotel casino The Palazzo in Las Vegas

MS Independence of the Seas

Host Danny Forster climbs into the frame of the Shanghai World Financial Centre. At its completion, it will be the tallest building in the world.

Danny Forster heads to Anniston Army Depot to re-assemble an Abrams tank. He also helps build components of this fighting machine and tests it on the firing range.

The Hoover Dam Bypass Project aims to remove traffic congestion along U.S. Highway 93 at the Colorado River crossing. A new arch bridge will span the river near Hoover Dam.

The South Ferry Terminal subway station is the first new subway station in New York City since the early 1900s.

A 3-mile toll road is built on a 20-foot-high storm drain in Kuala Lumpur.

The series takes a look at the construction of the new stadium for the NFL's Arizona Cardinals. The state-of-the-art structure is scheduled to be completed in August 2006. It will feature North America's first slide-out tray field, a "pie-slice" construction method and a unique steel-ribbon outer shell.

The dam, which is the largest ongoing construction project in Latin America, is designed to rise 186 meters above the Rio Grande de Santiago river in Mexico. Upon completion, it will provide for two percent of the entire country's electricity needs.

Europe's first liquefied natural gas plant sits on a floating platform. The platform was transported by ship from southern Spain to the coast of Norway.

Around 200 miles northeast of the capital, Reykjavik, engineers are hard at work drilling 72km of tunnels deep in the mountains. Three full-face boring machines have been specially shipped from the US to this remote site, 100 miles south of the Arctic Circle. The tunnel’s purpose is to guide water to the valley floor from reservoirs that are also currently under construction. The cascading water will drive six turbines, each with a rated output of 115 megawatts. With a total capacity of 690 megawatts, it will be the biggest hydropower plant in Europe.

The New Bay Bridge is the biggest construction project in California history. This two-mile, earthquake-proof road will replace the most heavily trafficked bridge in the country-the span linking San Francisco to Oakland and the East Bay.

Covers the docking of a container ship at Long Beach (California) and the operation of the water front docks, where several thousand containers need to be unloaded and loaded in 48 hours. Also covered is the building of the Adrian Maersk, the world's largest container ship. While the scale of these gigantic ships has to be seen to be believed, the construction must be precise to millimeters.

Global warming is causing sea levels around the world to rise and environmental experts believe Venice may well go the same way as Atlantis. The new flood gates should prevent the city’s 45km of canals from cannibalising its ancient architecture.

The Turning Torso is the world's largest residential structure, rising 190 meters above Malmö, Sweden.

A tunnel over 35 miles long is to be dug under the Swiss Alps to redirect Europe's traffic. This $7 billion project will take 6 years to complete with man and machine fighting the mountains 24/7.

Imagine driving across a bridge near the North Pole, or going from New York to London in just an hour through a tunnel under the Atlantic Ocean. These are just some of the awe-inspiring projects of today's builders and engineers. Jaw-dropping computer animation illustrates the largest, most outrageous projects ever conceived. As students learn about stretching the boundaries of modern engineering, they also gain understanding of the technological design process and come to understand how physics and chemistry are utilized to solve modern human engineering challenges.

This episode features Shimizu's Pyramid City, which would include dozens of 100-story skyscrapers with more than a million workers as part of a giant pyramid on the sea to provide more living space in Japan. Concepts such as construction robots, electricity issues, and building materials are examined. The pyramid could withstand a tidal wave, and perhaps protect the city as well.

The concept of building a tunnel across the Atlantic Ocean is talked about. It talks about the problems involved, and how it might someday be possible. At the end it examines the concept of a submarine hitting the tunnel, and how hopefully this wouldn't ruin it.

This episode explores the current New York City subway and the plans for renovation. Also the World Trade Center Station post 9/11 and its hasty repair.

It examines the concept of constructing a giant tower in Japan that wouldn't be a just a building, but a public city in the sky. At the end it talks about what a fire in the building would be like and how the fire department would handle it.