The Vertical City

It's the largest metropolis on earth,

suffer

of 23 million people.

But

which may change the way our cities work forever.'

This building is act

one of its kind.

No one has ever built this type of building before.

'An army of construc

races against the coming typhoon season

to create something completely new:

a haven with every amenity...

with clean air....

and with sunlit gardens perched high above the crowded streets.

This is a whole new district, rising 2,000 feet vertically,

and packed into

a single building.

It is the Shanghai Tower...

the city within the city.

And it is a Super Skyscraper.'

Super Skyscrapers was made possible in part

'It's 6 am, Monday morning in the world's most populous city.

13 milli

are on their way to work.

There's a reason why these workers are all dressed the same.

And why 60 identical buses are converging on the same point.

They're all coming here, to this building site.

3,000 workers will punch in this morning.

But in a year's time, when it opens for business,

the Shanghai Tower will be a workplace for 30,000.

In fact it will be a complete, self-contained neighborhood,

packed into a single block.

A vertical city,

rising inside China's tallest building.

For more than 100 years,

Shanghai has been China's commercial powerhouse.

It has been expanding unchecked.

It shows no signs of stopping.

The city is reaching a crisis point.

Problem one is pollution.

A

hit the rivers every day.

In a country where smog kills a million people every year,

Shanghai's levels are now among the worst.

Problem two...is congestion.

The number of cars has increased five times

in less than a decade.

The third problem is simply space, or lack of it.

Every square foot is accounted for.

Pudong, where the Shanghai Tower is being built,

looked like this in 1985.

This is Pudong today.

All in all, the city had become a tough place to live.

And it was clear that a radical idea was needed,

before life in Shanghai became impossible.

The team behind the Shanghai Tower

selected a site across the river from the old heart of t

known as the Bund.

Historically a financial centre,

it's now also a place for people to relax, eat and shop.

The intention was to create a version of this for the 21st century.

To meet the needs of modern Shanghai,

they wouldn't use

cars to get around.

They'd have hotels, restaurants, shops...

but most importantly, space.

But given that Shanghai is already full,

ther

one way left to build.

And that was up.

This is the vision:

a solid core reaching a third of a mile into the sky.

121 floors, divided into nine separate sections,

or levels.

Encased inside a glass curtain wall,

it rises 2,073 feet.

And covering the entire structure,

a

of smooth twisting glass.

And the gap between them will be for gardens,

with up to 180 feet of headroom.

In the middle of a polluted megacity, there will be light,

there will be trees,

there will be space and there will be

But delivering all that,

at heights never seen before in this country,

will test the building's engineers to their limits.

It's 4th June, 2013,

three years since the foundations were poured.

In that time, the core has climbed to 1,800 feet.

The Shanghai Tower is already China's tallest building.

So far, this vertical city has demanded nearly a million tonnes of material.'

This is 120 or 121.

'Ben Tranel, one of the architects on the project,

is at the top of the Shanghai Tower's still-growing core,

to oversee a huge challenge.

The workers are weaving a steel mesh,

around which concrete will be

While it sets, it will be held in

panels called formwork.'

The formwork is down below.

They lift it into place and then they pour the concrete.

They'll do a several-story section at once.

Then they just repeat that process.

That process just keeps going up the building.

'It's a conventional process,

made extraordinary by the pace of the work, and the sheer height.'

It started in the basement

and two years later, it's unbelievable.

You look at every individual tie

and you think somebody tied all of these pieces.

As an architect, I always feel humility

when I come to a job site like this,

because you realize so many people have to work so hard

on details that you never see just to make it come t

It's really amazing.

'Work on the core is around the clock.

At their current rate,

they can lay enough concrete and steel

for the building to rise by one story every five days.

But they still have eight floors to go.

And that means they need to go faster.

While the challenges are the same as with any super-tall skyscraper,

this proje

a unique kind of pressure.

Shanghai's typhoon season

comes at the same time every year.

This year it begins on 3rd August -

a mere eight weeks away.

Once the typhoon season starts,

work will become impossibly dangerous.

In that time,

as well as bringing the core to its full height,

the crews face two other big challenges -

first, to get one of the 20-tonne u

the building's air

up to the 82nd floor.

And second, to seal in the area

that will hold the fifth of the nine sky gardens

with a curving glass wall 15 stories high.'

(Thunder crashes)

'Any problems on the ground are multiplied at height.

This is the trade-off fo

the vertical city.

Once finished, the design will hold its occupants

in a sealed, protective bubble.

But until it's sealed, the weather can get in.

If that happens, t

will rip the building apart.

But the tower's architects will risk a few weeks' vulnerability

to see their vision realized.

In fact, they've made choices

that would be unthinkable on other skyscrapers.

They'v

whether you're on the 10th floor, or the 100th,

an airy, sunlit, open space must be within easy reach.

In the world of skyscrapers,

where every square foot is normally jealously guarded for office space,

it's a unique idea.

And it leads to a unique engineering challenge.

Where any modern skyscraper will have

surrounding its core,

this building will have two -

a normal skin housing offices,

plus another one on the outside,

up to 60 feet away.

The problem with a revolutionary design

is that there isn't a precedent to follow.

And buil

or curtain walls,

around the same concrete core

is a little like building one skyscraper inside another.

Daniel Choi is in charge of this part of the Tower's construction.

His chal

appear to float.

While the conventional solution would be to fill the space with steel supports,

this would defeat the object

of an empty, airy garden in the sky.

A slimline steel structure would collapse under its own weight.

How could they support a 15-story section of glass wall

using the bare minimum of metal?

Instead of fighting gravity, they're using it.

The framework that holds all the glass

isn't sitting on the floor below.

It's suspended

from the floor above.

Once the process is repeated on all nine levels,

the Hanging Gardens of Shanghai.

But how to actually build the framework baffled engineers.

The workers couldn

jobs floating in mid-air,

they'd need a solid floor to stand on.

On top of that, they'd have to find a way to build downwards,

while traditional scaffolds always build up.

In desperation, the architects turned to this man,

Dr. Jia Bao Rong,

32 years old, a structural engineer and the project's resident maverick.

What Dr. Jia proposed was a uniquely fresh approach to the problem.

The solution that he dreamt up was a moving scaffold.

He calls it the Flying Saucer.

Dr. Jia's Flying Saucer climbs to the top of a level,

and then slides down the core

while workers add steel ring beams, floor by

It's 100 tonnes of mobile scaffold

that moves at the touch of a button.

Dr. Jia knows his invention is vital to the success of the project.

Dr. Jia is under constant pressure to make sure there are no hold-ups.

The Level 5 support

his team is working on,

all 15 floors of it,

must be finished before the glass can be installed.

There is one thought in the back of everyone's minds.

In the beginning, the idea of the vertical city might have seemed a simple one.

It saves space,

and it lifts its inhabitants above polluted city streets.

But this solution cr

a whole new set of complex problems.'

We would be expecting to have winds anywhere between

120 to 170 miles an hour

at the top of the building.

And that's sustained wind speeds,

'A

by wind.

And at the design stage,

architects allow for the fact that they will sway.

Occasionally, occupants

of the higher floors

will report that they can feel that movement and find it unbearable.'

It's a bit like motion sickness.

So if you've been on

example,

it's not typically a very large force,

but a force that's as small as one per cent of one's bodyweight,

is the sort of motion where people start to feel uncomfortable.

'The team behind the Shanghai Tower

told their architects any sort of sway was unacceptable.

People meeting in a sky garden

had to feel like they were standing on solid ground,

even if they were on the 90th floor.

Michael Peng is part of the team of architects

that wrestled with this problem,

right at the start of the design process.

They knew that rounding the corners of the building would help reduce the sway.

More importantly, they knew that shifting the corners of the building as it climbed

would have a dramatic effect.

This was the decision that would define the shape

of the Shanghai Tower.

The question of how much to twist the building

was put to a group of wind tunnel experts,

led by Peter Irwin.'

What we found was that,

as we twisted the Shanghai Center more and more,

we got reduced wind loads.

So when the twist was up to 180 degrees,

that

the lowest wind load.

'180 degrees delivered a structure that would not only be aerodynamic,

it would also be rigid.'

If you have a very rigid building,

it's probably going to be very expensive.

'That's a polite way of saying that the perfect architectural solution

would cost way too much.

For perhaps the only time in the process,

they agreed to look for a compromise.'

So the amount of twist on this model is 180 degrees,

but we also explored twists down to 100 degrees as well.

'In

twist of 120 degrees.

This would keep the sway to

for people inside,

and create an unmistakable silhouette

on the Shanghai skyline.

Another unique feature is the 1.4 million square feet of glass

that wraps the building.

It's about more than shape.

It took a full three years of trials

to produce a glass that met the planners' demands:

Able to stand up to Shanghai's unique climate and weather.

Maximi

minimizing reflection,

bloc

when the sun is high,

but allowing the sky gardens to flood with light.

And most i

to withstand the typhoons

that will buffet them every season.

It is

advanced

glass available anywhere.

Once the panels are sealed, stacked

and shipped on to th

the hard task of installing them begins.

There are now less than six weeks before the typhoon season hits.

The slimline curtain wall support system

for the sky gardens on Level 5 is complete.

Bu

has yet to be installed.

This is a critical period.

Without its skin, the level is wide open to the elements.

And left unsealed, it is in danger of being ripped apart should a typhoon strike.

As if to prove the point, a sudden downpour hits Shanghai

a precursor of the storms to come.

As soon as the downpour subsides,

Kong Qingwei, the head of the company that owns the building,

comes to the unsealed Level 5 to see the damage.

The downpour has cost them five valuable days.

Chairman Kong Qingwei leaves with a directive.

The time must be made up.

The comfort of the vertical city's fut

comes first.

And that means that for the next five weeks,

life for the builders will be hell.

In that time, they m

installing

the huge glass panels, and seal up the curtain wall.

Fu Siwei, in charge of the Level 5 glazing team,

is acutely aware of the time pressure.

There are seven floors to be finished and sealed

before typhoon season begins,

or the winds could destroy the entire level.

First, Fu Siwei's team have to climb out on to the edges

of the damp steel beams.

Next, they must hoist the soaking wet glass panels

outside the building

before hanging them nearly 1,000 feet above the ground.

Each custom-made, half-tonne window

is then swung towards its position on the curtain wall.

Finally the bravest workers,

with only the narrow beams to stand on,

must inch the frames into place.

But it's slow, dangerous going.

Daniel Choi, the curtain wall's project manager, is also worried.

He knows that from here on in,

working conditions can only get worse.

These workers are used to moving about at extreme heights,

and have become virtually blind to the dangers.

Daniel's decision to put safety first

means his team is behind schedule.

At the end of the day, they only have 43 pane

installed,

seven short of the daily target.

At this rate, th

their deadline by five days,

and be at the me

of the typhoon season.

At this late stage, even meal breaks have to be run with military precision.

Lunch for this many workers takes a platoon of dedicated caterers.

Eventually the Tower will house dozens of restaurants.

But for now, lunch takes place wherever there are workers to feed.

There's one group of men whose lunch will have to wait.

Because today marks a milestone in the journey

towards the completion of the Shanghai Tower.

A key part of the vision for this building -

the creation of a self-contained vertical community -

was that its occupants should be free from the smog

and the extremes of temperature that blight the rest of Shanghai.

Now, the vast chiller units building's air quality -

in effect, its lungs - have arrived.

Word has c

chairman Kong Qingwei

wants to see them in place before the end of the day.

He's taking special interest in this part of the build.

It's up to Yuan Wengen's team

to navigate Shanghai's treacherous winds

and get the unit installed.

While one 20-tonne unit is earmarked for the plant room

on the 82nd floor,

this one needs to join two others just like it,

two floors down in the bowels of the building.

And to get there,

it also has to be moved 50 yards through the basement.

Even though this is the most advanced building in China,

the solution is one engineer

have used for thousands of years.

The crowded basement is a labyrinth of beams and pillars.

A pathway has been planned and the chiller unit should fit through,

but it's

a tight squeeze.

Once installed,

this chiller unit can never come out again.

So damaging it even slightly i

out of the question.

Which makes this a high-risk strategy.

With the unit in place,

Yuan Wengen orders a quick break.

But it's not for long.

Because the second unit won't be so easy.

It has to be installed 1,000 feet up.

And time is short.

Kong Qingwei is set to arrive any minute.

This chiller unit is the size of an SUV.

But it weighs 20 tonnes.

And because of t

hi-tech equipment inside,

it's worth half a million dollars.

The platform starts its climb.

The installation crew will meet it at the 82nd floor.

Between the lip of the building and the edge of the moving platform,

there is nothing but air and a 1,000-foot drop.

Yuan Wengen's crew will have to bridge the gap

and slide the chiller in.

The unit comes to rest at the edge of the building.

Yuan Wengen wants it inside as soon as possible.

The plan is to use a winch,

but preparations are taking a lon

And 82 floors below,

the chairman's car is just arriving on site.

The chiller unit is stuck, halfway across the gap,

dangling preca

in space 1,000 feet above the ground.

The chiller unit is tilting backwards,

away from the edge.

The workers must pull it forwards, gently, onto the 82nd floor.

If they jerk it, it'll pull loose

and fall to the city below,

tearing a hole down the side of the building as it goes,

and endangering the lives of anyone underneath.

After 35 minutes, they manage to get the unit off safely.

Yuan Wengen may be happy with his workers,

but it's not him they h

Chairm

report on his new skyscraper.

Installation can wait until tomorrow.

Once the units are functioning,

they'll provide clean, cool air for the Shanghai Tower,

no matter how bad the air outside might be.

It appears to be a day of inspections.

While Kong Qingwei is pleased with what he sees,

his business partner,

general manager Gu Jianping,

has arrived unannounced in the offices on Level 3.

This level is

stages of completion.

If the workers aren't paying attention to detail,

that can set alarm bells ringing.

An

detail can be the difference between triumph and disaster.

Six days after Gu Jianping's inspection,

architects Micha

and Ben Tranel

are called t

be the Level 5 sky garden.

Th

glass for this level

is in place a full ten days ahead of schedule.

But they're concerned that in the race to finish the job,

corners may have been cut.

It is critical that

identify any problems now,

before the real bad weather sets in.'

I was worried about the joinery of the horizontal to the vertical.

That's not the right detail, is it?

Did they do it everywhere like that?

There, look at the conflict, it's sagging.

That looks terrible.

That looks terrible.

What a mess!

'There is clear cause for concern.

The work done doesn't match the drawings

that Ben and Michael gave the builders.'

This detail we talked about with them a while back.

We e

than what they did.

We drew something different than what they've done.

That happens a lot.

So that one is not very flat.

- He can fix that?

- Yeah.

'As they

workmanship,

Ben and Michael have to wonder how deep the problems go.

They want to see for themselves how the windows stand up.'

(Speaks Chinese)

'A number of panels are chosen at random.

They'll have to

a full five minutes

of a simulated tropical storm,

without springing a leak.'

We need a ladder.

If they bring that scaffold over...

'A Level 16 typhoon will dump up to seven inches of rain in an hour.

There's only one way

that much water in a test.'

Be careful, Michael.

'Two guys, dangling from a rope,

at the height of the Eiffel Tower,

with a high-pressure water hose.'

This is the kind of test that is going to be boring

until it's exciting.

It's exciting when there's

You don't want any excitement, you want it to be boring.

'If the curtain wall isn't completely sealed,

the wind and rain at this height

will eventually tear the glass panels from their positions.

So on this test, there are no shortcuts.'

He needs to stay on that spot for five minutes.

Okay, so stay on one spot for five minutes?

Yeah, exactly.

He's only been there for three minutes.

It's passed so far.

We'll go back and see if they're still passing.

But so far so good.

'If every panel passes,

Level 5 will be sealed: a 15-story tall open space,

proofed against even the harshest storms.

And wi

units in place,

the architects' vision appears within reach.

Inside a year, this will be a sky garden.

There's one challenge left to complete,

the fi

top level of the core.

For the last three years,

as the Shanghai Tower has risen,

four huge tower cranes have supplied the core

with building material -

nearly a million tonnes of it

Those cranes have had to reposition themselves constantly

to stay above the build.

Now they're higher up than any crane in China has ever been before.

Li Jie is a crane driver.

He's been on this project since it started,

three years ago and nearly 1,900 feet below.

To complete the job,

the cranes must lift themselves one more time.

There is a new sense of urgency,

because this year, typhoon season will be starting right on time.

A typhoon is forming in the Pacific

and it is predicted to hit Shanghai -

and the Tower - in five days.

In theory, jumping a crane is a simple matter

of putting one bracket round the top of the crane mast

and removing the one on the bottom,

so the crane can continue to push itself upwards.

In practice, it's far from simple.

This is a 20-story,

40-tonne structure,

strapped to the side of a buildi

than two welded brackets.

The pressure

the job is enormous.

In five days' time,

the news crews that have followed it since the beginning

will be here to witness the placing of the final piece.

That won't happen unless the crane jumps on schedule.

The new bracket is in the process of being welded to the side of the core.

If it's not done properly,

the crane could easily tear the bracket from the wall

and the whole rig will fall to the city below.

This is a job that can't be rushed.

The welders have worked through the night.

Now the crane inspector, Ou Yang, has arrived.

He will decide if the move can take place.

His inspection must start with a five-story descent

inside the crane's mast.

Then, there is no choice but to step out,

1,850 feet above ground,

on to a wet, tem

on the side of the core.

Finally, to inspect the bracket,

he has to climb around it.

The danger signs on the oscillograph tell Ou Yang what he needs to know.

At several points on the bracket, the welding is unsafe.

It looks like the rush to complete

to more compromises.

The welding gang goes down for a second attempt.

Every minute lost now

the entire project.

But this is th

get it right.

After the welders have finished,

Ou Yang checks again.'

Okay.

'The crane jump can finally take place.

All the materials can be lifted up,

and work on the core can continue.

Every tall building has a topping out ceremony,

the moment when the highest part of the main structure

is symbolically put in place.

In the case of the Shanghai Tower,

this is a seven-tonne steel brace

that has to be installed today, 3rd August.

It's an auspicious day in the Chinese calendar,

but it also happens to be the official start of Shanghai's typhoon season.

And there's one on the way.

On this day last year,

four inches of rain fell on Shanghai in 12 hours.

The floods affected huge p

of the city, killing two people.

On the groun

to the building site have been thrown open.

All eyes are on chairman Kong Qingwei.

He has promised his various partners that the topping out ceremony,

broadcast live on local and national television,

will be a triumphant spectacle.

If it doesn't go seamlessly,

he stands to lose face very publicly.

He's not the only feeling the stress.

Also in the spotlight today is his star worker, Dr. Jia Bao Rong.

He's 121 floors up, a staggering 1,900 feet,

at the top of the Shanghai Tower.

That one last piece, the seven-tonne steel brace,

still has to be installed.

It's D

it goes in with a minimum of fuss

and maximum fanfare.

As the invited dignitaries settle in for the show,

the final piece of this gigantic jigsaw puzzle

starts its long journey to the top.

From this point onwards,

the ceremony has to run with split-second timing.

At the appointed moment, Chairman Kong Qingwei heads to the stage.

Three year

labor and it all comes down to this.

Knowing that thousands of people and his boss are watching,

Dr. Jia gives the signal

to lower the steel beam into its final position.

The core is in place,

five of the nine levels are sealed.

There's still a year of work left

before the first occupants can enjoy the Shanghai Tower and its gardens.

But the visi

self-contained community,

of a completely new kind of sky

is almost a reality.'

(Thunder crashes)

'Six hours after the building is declared secure,

typhoon season arrives in full force.

For the time being,

the team behind the Shanghai Tower can relax.

when money is no object...'

The lengths that we're going to...

it's really unheard of.

'..the sky is the limit...'

There are no views like this in Manhattan.

'..in the quest to creat

the most luxurious skyscraper ever built.'

It's a luxurious finish - luxury doesn't come cheap.

I don't think many people are gonna be able to top this.

Nobody's gonna walk out of here disappointed.

To learn more about this program, visit pbs.org/superskyscrapers

Supers Skycrapers was made possible in part