1 Skyscraper

Big, Bigger, Biggest... Skyscraper reveals how seven ingenious technological breakthroughs have enabled engineers to build the world’s tallest Skyscraper – the Burj Dubai in the Arabian Gulf.

This super-skyscraper reaches nearly half a mile high into the clouds. Twice as tall as the Empire State Building, it is the tallest man-made structure standing on the Earth.

The 160-story tower boasts 53 elevators - some capable of travelling over 20mph, a super-reflective glass skin that could cover 17 football fields, and a luxurious hotel designed by Giorgio Armani. Building this $1 billion superstructure consumed over half a million tons of concrete, twenty acres of glass and enough steel to stretch a quarter of the way around the globe.

We reveal how its double-decker elevators evolved, how ‘refuge rooms’ provide a safe haven for the building’s residents in the event of a fire and how its tapered design cheats strong winds.

But the Burj Dubai wasn’t built in a day.

It stands on the shoulders of seven historic engineering achievements. We chart the stories of seven key inventions, embodied by seven landmark buildings that allow the Burj Dubai to be so tall.

We reveal how the safety elevator evolved inside the Equitable Life Building to enable Skyscrapers to break through the seven-storey barrier. We show how the Steel Skeleton frame of the Fuller Flatiron in New York enabled light-weight skyscrapers soaring 22-storeys high to grow. We recount how air conditioning systems developed in the United Nations HQ building in New York to allow its exterior to be clad in glass, and how pre-fabrication techniques enabled the World Trade Centre to be built in record time. We show how the Sears Tower’s tubular exoskeleton enables it to withstand strong gusts and demonstrate how the Taipei 101 – built on an earthquake fault in Taiwan – is protected from destructive earth tremors.

One by one - travelling up the scale - we reveal the incredible stories behind these structures and the inventions that drove them higher. Seven ingenious leaps forward that enabled skyscrapers to evolve …from BIG to BIGGER into the World’s BIGGEST.

At every stage we will see how each invention is applied in the Burj Dubai.

We reveal how getting 35,000 inhabitants into the tower stretches the Burj Dubai’s elevators to the absolute limit. We witness the super-expensive curtain wall of the building being subjected to a simulated desert storm, and reveal how designers found a revolutionary way of stopping the building from toppling over in high winds.

We explore how engineers construct a half-million-ton building to stand rigid on the sandy desert, show how the team developed a unique crane system to raise the structure in record time, and reveal how the Burj Dubai’s glass skin reflects the harsh desert heat.

Over 50% of the film is set in a stunning and stylish CGI world, where our seven inventions and landmark buildings come to life. Combined with live action visual effects and practical demonstrations this film provides the ultimate explanation of how ingenious technology enabled the skyscraper to evolve into the ultimate Superscraper – the Burj Dubai.