Watch Construction Fails with Fubo for $0 Today
Using real footage and CGI, the series reveals what went wrong, why it happened, and how disasters from major collapses to costly mistakes could have been prevented.
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S1, EP1 "Implode, Ignite, Collapse"
When a Dutch city replaces a drawbridge, a breeze turns the bridge into a giant sail and everything goes sideways; in controlled demolition, you push a button and knock it down, but why do some buildings just fail to fall? The ground beneath our feet is not as solid as it looks, especially when it's under wheels; welcome to the wonderful world of sinkholes; buildings are built to stand the test of time, but sometimes time runs out and what's supposed to be up for decades, goes down in seconds.
S1, EP2 "Cathedral Catastrophe"
It's an 800-year-old icon, an irreplaceable treasure, with a state-of-the-art smoke detector; how did Notre Dame cathedral catch fire? We go up them and down them, sometimes we fall down them; no one thinks about stairs until they make us; is using our feet all in our heads? Giant smokestacks push our junk into the sky, but when they become junk themselves, they get blown to bits; when the earth quakes, even the biggest structures can fail; is there such a thing as an earthquake-proof building?
S1, EP3 "Glass Half Shattered"
Glass: one of the most versatile materials in the construction world; it's both practical and beautiful, but when it fails it's not all it's cracked up to be; excavators: when what goes up must come down, these daring destroyers are the machines to get it done; Atlanta's Georgia Dome dropped like a stone, but in Detroit, the Pontiac Silverdome roof fell, but the building didn't; two cranes, fifty tons of steel, the pesky laws of gravity and one giant hole — what could go wrong? Everything.
S1, EP4 "Modern Designs, Modern Problems"
Urban construction relies on two types of cranes to hoist the next high-rise, but when they fail, they make one big mess; amusement parks use intense G-forces to thrill us, but when the ride comes to a sudden stop, all that power can turn against us; hurricanes and typhoons; these ferocious winds can knock you off your feet or blow down a building; escalators are great for moving a lot of people quickly, but not so great when they move a lot of people onto a lot of people.
