Building the Biggest is an innovative six-part series capturing the most ambitions building projects shaping our world today.
From pipelines and diamond mines to the International Space Station and the Singapore subway system, Building the Biggest examines what it takes to get the job done and meets with the masters of construction who make the seemingly impossible a practical reality.
Every episode of Building the Biggest examines a single major construction process - from diamond mining to roller coaster building - following the most dramatic points in construction that demand the steadiest hands, heaviest machines - and coolest nerves.
EPISODES
The World's Longest Undersea Pipeline
The UK is running out of gas at an alarming rate and the solution lies deep beneath the Norwegian Sea. One kilometre below the sea bed they have discovered enough gas to supply the UK for the next 30 years.
But to get the gas to Britain, you have to sink huge drills and lay a massive 1200 km pipe that will survive the rocky terrain of the sea bed. It takes 1000 men with the stamina and skill to endure the rough waters of one of the most unforgiving seas on the planet.
The schedule is relentless, and as horrendous weather conditions make the job next to impossible and food starts to run out on the ship, the crew begin to get twitchy.
The International Space Station
This is the story of the colossal effort involved in building the biggest human-made structure in space, the International Space Station.
The combined person power that has gone into building, launching and in-space assembly of the Space Station to date represents the biggest international construction project in history.
A massive undertaking, 16 nations have come together to build this cosmic outpost.
Built across the globe, most of the elements that make up the space station rely on NASA's Space Shuttle for a ride into space. So when the shuttle fleet was grounded in 2003 following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, many of the station components due for launch were stuck on Earth.
In July 2005, the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery heralded the return to flight for the shuttle fleet.
In this film we travel to Holland, Germany, Italy, Moscow, Canada, America and outer space as the pieces of this truly international jigsaw take shape and prepare to blast off, boldly crossing the final frontier.
The Great Roller Coaster Race
Ever since the American Rosenthal brothers built the Cyclone in 1926, roller coasters have held a terrifying fascination for generations of thrill seekers.
The Cyclone quickly became a Brooklyn icon, but in the 1950s families began to abandon the city for the suburbs and the demise of Coney Island mirrored the move from wood to steel in the search for the ultimate gravity-defying roller coaster ride.
Until now - 50 years later, the wooden coaster is being reborn.
"Woodies" offer a very different quality of ride that’s enhanced by a physiological induction of fear. This episode joins the race to build the most terrifying ride, travelling to Indiana, Kentucky and New Jersey where three of the biggest, fastest and tallest wooden roller coasters are under construction.
Watch as engineers calculate the winning formula to enthrall, thrill and terrify.
The World's Busiest Railway
The west coast main line railway between London and Scotland is one of the busiest in the world. Millions of people regularly commute on new state-of-the-art trains running on century-old tracks.
This episode follows the replacement of the vintage rail line, section by section, up and down the length of the country. At $14-million and with 60-million hours already worked it's the largest current engineering project in Europe.
As the line is still in operation, this mammoth engineering feat has to happen over the weekends.
Every Friday night 10,000 workers and millions of dollars worth of machinery roll onto the tracks in a race to get the job done to in time to hand the line back for the Monday morning commuters.
Diamond Hunters
With winter approaching fast the prospectors are in a race to reach their goal. The location, close to the Arctic circle is barren and inhospitable. Above ground there is nothing but the occasional herd of migrating caribou, the odd grizzly bear and a scattering of local inhabitants scraping a living off the land.
But all that changes below ground where our prospectors believe there are millions of dollars worth of diamonds. If they are right, this wasteland could become one of the richest pieces of real estate on the planet.
All they have to do is claim the land, find the seam of gems, extract samples, get them tested and start building a mine. Sounds easy, but with temperatures about to drop to minus 50 at any moment and investors getting twitchy, this is quite literally a race against time.
Their hunt on the surface of the land is contrasted with two mines already hitting paydirt - the one near Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories that started it all and another almost completed in Nunavut, where they are digging deep in the hopes of hauling out millions of dollars in diamonds.
The ever-changing landscape will reflect the tension, drama, conflict, disappointment and euphoria which are an ever present part of hunting for diamonds.
Underground Singapore
Think New York, think Paris, London, Los Angeles, Amsterdam and Moscow. Each a thriving metropolis and home to millions. Each commuting centres for industrial and financial operators. Each systematically and unstoppably grinding towards gridlock.
One of many common denominators in these cultural cosmopolitan cities are the worlds below their feet, their underground rail networks, their subways. Dank, depressing warrens of migrating humans, or the future for a better way of life above ground?
After decades of moving around in intersecting tubes, the jury is still out.
But for one city the future is looking exceedingly bright. If you take all the best bits from undergrounds around the world, discard everything that does not work and then throw millions of dollars into further design and construction, then you have the project that has every Singaporean drooling over their dim sum - The Singapore Circle Line, one of the biggest and certainly best underground railways in the world.
In this film we witness the realisation of this utopian vision under construction. The spectacle is addictively fascinating. That’s because the mission is fraught with difficulties. Can the team follow through on Lee Kuan Yew’s vision?
We also drop in on another great feat of underground construction: Amsterdam's North-South line. This historic city is finally getting a Metro Line extension.
As it turns out, the planners and construction teams would have had an easier time sending a rocket to the moon.