Extreme Engineering

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Extreme Engineering

Extreme Engineering is a documentary

Documentary film

Documentary film is a broad category of visual expression that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to "document" reality. Although "documentary film" originally referred to movies shot on film stock, it has subsequently expanded to include video and new media productions that can be either direct-to-video or made for a televis...
television series aired on the Discovery Channel

Discovery Channel

The Discovery Channel is an United States satellite and cable TV channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications....
and The Science Channel

The Science Channel

The Science Channel is a cable and satellite television channel produced by Discovery Communications. Science Channel features science-related television programs covering all aspects of science, e.g....
which features futuristic

Future

The future is a time period commonly understood to contain all events that have yet to occur. It is the opposite of the past, and is the time after the present....
and ongoing engineering

Engineering

Engineering is the discipline and profession of applying Technology and science knowledge and utilizing natural laws and physical resources in order to design and implement materials, structures, machines, devices, systems, and process that safely realize a desired objective and meet specified criteria....
projects. As of 2007, the show aired its sixth season. The show has been hosted by Danny Forster

Danny Forster

Danny Forster is the host of the Discovery Channel shows Extreme Engineering and Build It Bigger. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1999 with a B.A....
since season 4. The show was renamed Build It Bigger in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
but retains its name when broadcast in Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
.

ngineering the Impossible was a ground-breaking 2-hour special, created and written by Alan Lindgren and produced by Powderhouse Productions

Powderhouse Productions

Powderhouse Productions is an United States television production company....
for the Discovery Channel.

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Encyclopedia

Extreme Engineering is a documentary

Documentary film

Discovery Channel

The Discovery Channel is an United States satellite and cable TV channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications....
and The Science Channel

The Science Channel

Future

The future is a time period commonly understood to contain all events that have yet to occur. It is the opposite of the past, and is the time after the present....
and ongoing engineering

Engineering

Danny Forster

United States

Europe

Origins of the show

Engineering the Impossible was a ground-breaking 2-hour special, created and written by Alan Lindgren and produced by Powderhouse Productions

Powderhouse Productions

Powderhouse Productions is an United States television production company....
for the Discovery Channel. It focused on three incredible, yet physically possible, engineering projects: the nine mile (14 km)-long Gibralter Bridge, the 170-story Millennium Tower and the 4000+-foot-long Freedom Ship. This program won the Beijing International Science Film Festival Silver Award, and earned Discovery's second-highest, weeknight rating for 2002. After the success of this program, Discovery commissioned Powderhouse to produce the first season of the 10-part series, Extreme Engineering, whose episodes were written by Alan Lindgren, Ed Fields and several other Powderhouse writer-producers. Like Engineering the Impossible, the first season of Extreme Engineering focused on extreme projects of the future. Season 2 (and all seasons since) featured projects already in construction around the world.

WAGtv Ltd. produced 6 episodes for Discovery that were also broadcast in the US as part of the 4th season of Extreme Engineering.

Episode List

Engineering the Impossible

Gibraltar Bridge
Gibraltar bridge

Gibraltar Tunnel is envisioned as a rail tunnel that would link Africa and Europe. The idea of a link via a bridge or a tunnel across the Strait of Gibraltar has existed since the 1980s....
(being proposed)
Freedom Ship
Freedom Ship

Freedom Ship was a ocean colonization project initially proposed by Norman Nixon in the late 1990s. It was so named because of the "free" international lifestyle facilitated by a mobile ocean colony, though the project would not have been a conventional ship, but rather a series of linked barges....
(being proposed)
Millennium Tower (Hong Kong) (on-hold/cancelled due to Central Reclamation Phase III
Central and Wan Chai Reclamation

Central and Wan Chai Reclamation is a project launched by the Hong Kong Government since the 1990s to land reclamation for different purposes....
lawsuit)

Season 1: 2003

Episode name	Premiere	Project	Status at Production	Current Status
Tokyo's Sky City	2003-04-13	Tokyo Tokyo , officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan of Japan and located on the eastern side of the main island Honshu. The twenty-three special wards of Tokyo, each governed as a city, cover the area that was once the Tokyo City in the eastern part of the prefecture, and total over 8 million people.... 's Sky City Sky City 1000 Sky City 1000 is a possible future urban supertall skyscraper project aimed at helping put an end to major congestion and lack of greenspace in the Tokyo, Japan metropolitan area....	Proposed	Proposed
Subways Rapid transit A rapid transit, subway, underground, elevated railway or metro system is an railway electrification system public transport rail transport in an urban area with high capacity and frequency, and which is grade separation from other traffic.... In America	2003-04-15	East Side Access East Side Access East Side Access is a public works project being undertaken by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York City, designed to bring the Long Island Rail Road into a new East Side station to be built below and incorporated into Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan....	Proposed (some construction related to other project completed IND 63rd Street Line The IND 63rd Street Line is a rapid transit line of the Independent Subway System division of the New York City Subway system. It runs from the IND Sixth Avenue Line at 57th Street east under 63rd Street and the East River through the 63rd Street Tunnel to the IND Queens Boulevard Line in Queens.... )	Under Construction
Transatlantic Tunnel	2003-04-16	The Transatlantic Tunnel Transatlantic tunnel A transatlantic tunnel is a theoretical tunnel which would span the Atlantic Ocean between North America and Europe and would carry mass transit of some type?trains are envisioned in most proposals....	Proposed	Proposed
City in a Pyramid	2003-04-23	The Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid The Shimizu TRY 2004 Mega-City Pyramid is a proposed project for construction of a massive pyramid over Tokyo Bay in Japan. The structure would be 12 times higher than the Great Pyramid at Giza at Giza, and would house 750,000 people....	Proposed	Proposed
Bridging the Bering Strait	2003-04-30	The Bering Strait Bridge Bering Strait Bridge The Bering Strait bridge or Bering Strait tunnel is a hypothesized bridge or tunnel spanning the Bering Strait between Cape Dezhnev, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia, and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, United States....	Proposed	Proposed
Tunneling Under the Alps	2003-05-07	Gotthard Base Tunnel Gotthard Base Tunnel The Gotthard Base Tunnel is a railway tunnel under construction in Switzerland. With a planned length of 57 km and a total of 153.5 km of tunnels, shafts and passages planned, it will be the List of tunnels by length in the world upon completion, ahead of the current record holder, the Seikan Tunnel ....	Under Construction	Under Construction
Building Hong Kong's Airport	2003-05-14	Hong Kong International Airport Hong Kong International Airport Hong Kong International Airport is the main airport in Hong Kong. It is colloquially known as Chek Lap Kok Airport , because it was built on the Islands and peninsulas of Hong Kong#Islands of Chek Lap Kok by land reclamation, and also to distinguish it from the old Hong Kong Airport ....	Completed	Completed
Holland's Barriers to the Sea	2003-05-21	Maeslantkering Maeslantkering The Maeslantkering is a storm surge barrier in the Nieuwe Waterweg waterway located between the towns of Hoek van Holland and Maassluis, Netherlands, , which automatically closes when needed.... and Oosterscheldekering Oosterscheldekering The Oosterscheldekering , between the islands Schouwen-Duiveland and Noord-Beveland, is the largest of the 13 ambitious Delta Works series of dams, designed to protect the Netherlands from flooding.... storm surge barriers	Completed	Completed
Boston's Big Dig	2003-05-28	Boston's Big Dig	Under Construction	Completed
Widening the Panama Canal Panama Canal The Panama Canal is a man-made canal which joins the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean oceans. One of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, it had an enormous impact on shipping between the two oceans, replacing the long and treacherous route via the Drake Passage and Cape Horn at the southernmost tip of South Am...	2003-06-04	Panama Canal expansion project	Under Construction	Under Construction

Season 2: 2004

9 episodes were produced for season 2. It is also the first season produced in HDTV for HD Theater.

Episode name	Premiere	Project	Status at production	Current Status
Turning Torso	2004-07-07	Turning Torso Turning Torso HSB Turning Torso is a skyscraper in Malm?, Sweden, located on the Swedish side of the ?resund strait. It was designed by the Spanish people architect Santiago Calatrava and officially opened on 27 August 2005....	Under construction	Completed
Venice Flood Gates	2004-07-14	Venice Tide Barrier Project (MOSE Project MOSE Project The MOSE Project is a project intended to protect the city of Venice, Italy. Is an integrated defence system consisting of rows of mobile gates able to isolate the Venetian Lagoon from the Adriatic Sea when the tide reaches above an established level and up to a maximum of 3 m.... )	Under construction	Under construction
Container Ship Container ship Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size containers, in a technique called containerization. They form a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport.... s	2004-07-28	Adrian Mærsk (Maersk Line)		Completed (In service)
Oakland Bay Bridge	2004-08-04	San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge	Under construction	Under construction
Iceland Tunnels	2004-09-01	Kárahnjúkar Hydropower Project Kárahnjúkar Hydropower Project The K?rahnj?kar Hydropower Project, located at , involves damming two rivers in eastern Iceland?the J?kuls? ? Flj?tsdal, source to the famous "Milky Lake" of Lagarflj?t, and the J?kuls? ? Dal aka J?kuls? ? Br??to produce hydroelectricity to power a new aluminium smelting plant that is being built by Alcoa in the town of Rey?arfj?r?ur....		Completed
Off-shore Oil Platforms	2004-09-25	Jack up oil rigs in Louisiana
Cooper River Bridge	2004-10-05	Cooper River Bridge	Under construction	Completed
Millau Viaduct	2004-11-15	Millau Viaduct Millau Viaduct The Millau Viaduct is a large cable-stayed bridge viaduct that spans the valley of the River Tarn near Millau in southern France. Designed by the structural engineer Michel Virlogeux and British architect Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank, it is the tallest vehicular bridge in the world, with one mast's summit at ? slightly taller...	Under construction	Completed
Excavators	2004-11-22	Hull-Rust-Mahoning Open Pit Iron Mine Hull-Rust-Mahoning Open Pit Iron Mine The Hull-Rust-Mahoning Mine in Hibbing, Minnesota, Minnesota, is the largest Open-pit mining in the world. The mine, located in the Mesabi Range, supplied as much as one-fourth of all the iron ore mined in the United States during its peak production years of World War I and World War II....

Season 3: 2005

WagTV produced 6 episodes that were acquired by Discovery for season 3.

Episode name	Premiere	Project	Status at production	Current Status
The Snøhvit Arctic Gas Processing Platform	2005-10-19	Snøhvit Snøhvit Sn?hvit is the name of a natural gas field in the Barents Sea, situated 140 km northwest of Hammerfest, Norway. Sn?hvit is also the name of a development of Sn?hvit and the two neighbouring natural gas fields Albatross and Askeladden.... platform / MV Blue Marlin MV Blue Marlin MV Blue Marlin and her sister ship MV Black Marlin comprise the Marlin class of Semi-submersible#Heavy-lift. They were owned by Offshore Heavy Transport of Oslo, Norway from their construction, in April 2000 and November 1999 respectively, until July 6, 2001, when they were purchased by Dockwise Shipping of the Netherlands....	Under Construction	Completed
The El Cajon Dam	2005-11-10	El Cajon Dam (Mexico) El Cajón Dam (Mexico) El Caj?n Dam is a hydroelectric dam in the Mexican state of Nayarit. Construction began in 2003 and was completed in June 2007. It cost $800 million to build....	Under Construction	Completed
Hong Kong's Cable Car	2005-12-02	Ngong Ping 360 Ngong Ping 360 Ngong Ping 360 is a tourism project in Lantau Island, Hong Kong, consisting of Ngong Ping gondola lift and Ngong Ping Village. It is owned by the MTR Corporation, built and originally operated by Skyrail-ITM until it was sacked after an investigation following an incident where a cable car plunged 50m to the ground ....	Under Construction	Completed
Woodrow Wilson Bridge	2005-12-09	Woodrow Wilson Bridge Woodrow Wilson Bridge The Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge is a bascule bridge that spans the Potomac River between the independent city of Alexandria, Virginia and Oxon Hill, Maryland in Prince George's County, Maryland....	Under Construction	Completed
Gotthard Tunnel	2006-01-01	Gotthard Base Tunnel Gotthard Base Tunnel The Gotthard Base Tunnel is a railway tunnel under construction in Switzerland. With a planned length of 57 km and a total of 153.5 km of tunnels, shafts and passages planned, it will be the List of tunnels by length in the world upon completion, ahead of the current record holder, the Seikan Tunnel ....	Under Construction	Under Construction
Dubai's Ski Resort	2006-01-21	Ski Dubai Ski Dubai File:Ski Dubai.jpgSki Dubai is claimed to be one of the largest indoor ski resorts in the world, with 22,500-square metres of indoor ski area....	Under Construction	Completed

Season 4: 2006

Powderhouse Productions produced 6 episodes for season 4 with host Danny Forster. It currently airs under the Build It Bigger name on HD Theater, The Science Channel

The Science Channel

Discovery Channel

The Discovery Channel is an United States satellite and cable TV channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications....

Episode name	Premiere	Project	Status at production	Current Status
SuperStadium	2006-02-19	University of Phoenix Stadium University of Phoenix Stadium University of Phoenix Stadium is a multipurpose American football stadium located in Glendale, Arizona. It is the home of the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League and the annual Fiesta Bowl....	under construction	completed
MegaTunnel	2006-03-08	Storm Management And Road Tunnel SMART Tunnel The "Stormwater Management and Road Tunnel" or "SMART Tunnel", is a storm drainage and road structure in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a major Malaysian National Projects in the country.... (SMART) in Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur , is the largest city of Malaysia. The city proper, making up an area of , has an estimated population of 1.6 million in 2006. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million.... , Malaysia Malaysia Malaysia is a federation that consists of States of Malaysia in Southeast Asia with a total landmass of . The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government....	under construction	completed
Biggest Warship	2006-05-31	USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77)	under construction	Christened
Sakhalin Oil & Ice	2006-06-28	Sakhalin-II Sakhalin-II The Sakhalin II project is one of the biggest oil and gas developments in the world. Two oil and gas fields are being developed offshore Sakhalin in the Okhotsk Sea: Piltun-Astokhskoye and Lunskoye....	under construction
Big Easy Rebuild	2006-07-05	Reconstruction of New Orleans Reconstruction of New Orleans The effects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans were catastrophic due to failure of the Flood Control Act of 1965 system designed to protect the city ....	under construction	under construction
Space Tower	2006-07-12	Madrid Madrid Madrid is the Capital and largest city of Spain. It is the Largest cities of the European Union by population within city limits in the European Union after Greater London and Berlin, and its Madrid metropolitan area is the Largest urban areas of the European Union in the European Union after Paris aire urbaine, Greater London Urban Area, a... 's Torre Espacio Torre Espacio The Torre Espacio is a skyscraper in Madrid, Spain. The skyscraper is 236 metres tall and has 57 floors.In November 2006, its structure surpassed the height of the Gran Hotel Bali, thus becoming the tallest building in Spain, although it has retained this title only for a short time ....	under construction	Almost complete

Season 5: 2006

Episode name	Premiere	Project	Status at production	Current Status
South Ferry Subway Station	2006-10-11	The New York City Subway New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the City of New York and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, a subsidiary agency of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and also known as MTA New York City Transit.... 's new South Ferry South Ferry (New York City Subway) South Ferry is a metro station on the IRT Broadway?Seventh Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. It is the southern terminal station of the service.... station		Under construction
World's Biggest Arch Bridge	2006-10-18	Hoover Dam Bypass Hoover Dam Bypass Hoover Dam Bypass refers to the construction of the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge and connecting roads for a new route across the Colorado River for U.S.... (Mike O'Callaghan Mike O'Callaghan Donal Neil "Mike" O'Callaghan was the governor of the U.S. state of Nevada from 1971 until 1979. He was a member of the United States Democratic Party.... -Pat Tillman Pat Tillman Patrick Daniel Tillman was an American football player who left his professional sports career and enlisted in the United States Army in May 2002.... Memorial Bridge)	Under construction	Under construction
JFK: JetBlue Terminal	2006-10-25	Reconstruction of John F. Kennedy International Airport John F. Kennedy International Airport John F. Kennedy International Airport is an international airport located on Long Island, in Queens County, New York in southeastern New York City about 12 miles from Lower Manhattan.... 's Terminal 5 TWA Flight Center File:Jfkairport.jpgFile:5a28553r.jpgThe TWA Flight Center was the original name for Terminal 5 at New York City's Idlewild Airport , designed by Eero Saarinen for Trans World Airlines....	Under construction	completed
Stonecutters Bridge: Hong Kong	2006-11-01	Hong Kong Hong Kong Hong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a territory located in Southern China in East Asia, bordering the province of Guangdong to the north and facing the South China Sea to the east, west and south.... 's Stonecutters Bridge Stonecutters Bridge Stonecutters Bridge is a high level cable-stayed bridge which spans the Rambler Channel in Hong Kong, connecting Nam Wan Kok, Tsing Yi Island and Stonecutters Island....	Under construction	Under construction
California Academy of Sciences	2006-11-08	The rebuilding of the California Academy of Sciences California Academy of Sciences The California Academy of Sciences is one of the ten largest museums of natural history in the World . Remodeled in 2008, it is also one of the newest in the United States.... in San Francisco, California California California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....	Under construction	Completed
Hallandsås Ridge Tunnel: Sweden	2006-11-15	Sweden's Hallandsas railway tunnel Hallandsås tunnel The Hallands?s Tunnel , also known as the Hallands?s Ridge Tunnel or Scanlink, is a railway tunnel under construction in Sweden. The planned length is 8.5 km ....	Under construction	Under construction

Season 6: 2007

Episode name	Premiere	Project	Status at production	Current Status
Building a Destroyer	2007-10-16	Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Portsmouth Naval Shipyard The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard , often called the Portsmouth Navy Yard, is a United States Navy shipyard located in Kittery, Maine on the southern boundary of Maine.... in Maine Maine The State of Maine is a U.S. state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America, bordering the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, New Hampshire to the southwest, the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast....	Under Construction	Under Construction
Fault Zone Tunnel	2007-10-23	Freshwater pipeline to support Southern California California California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California.... . Watch a TBM Tunnel boring machine A tunnel boring machine is a machine used to excavate tunnels with a circular cross section through a variety of soil and Stratum. They can bore through hard rock, sand, and almost anything in between.... at work.	Under Construction	Under Construction
Boot Camp	2007-10-30	With Excavator Excavator An excavator is an engineering vehicle consisting of an articulated arm , bucket and cab mounted on a pivot atop an undercarriage with Caterpillar track or wheels.... s in Boston, Massachusetts Massachusetts The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a U.S. state located in the New England region of the Northeastern United States United States. It borders Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north.... .
World's Tallest Skyscraper	2007-11-06	Shanghai World Financial Centre	Under Construction	Completed
Battle Machines	2007-11-13	An M1 Abrams M1 Abrams The M1 Abrams is a Tank classification#Main battle tank produced in the United States. The M1 is named after General Creighton Abrams, former Army Chief of Staff of the United States Army and Commander of US military forces in Vietnam from 1968 to 1972.... tank undergoing maintenance at Fort Knox Fort Knox Fort Knox is a United States United States Army post in Kentucky south of Louisville, Kentucky and north of Elizabethtown, Kentucky. The base, , covers parts of Bullitt County, Kentucky, Hardin County, Kentucky, and Meade County, Kentucky counties, with Hardin county receiving the largest benefit, economically.... , Kentucky Kentucky The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a U.S. state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is normally included in the group of Southern United States , but it is uncommonly included, geographically and culturally, in the Midwestern United States....
Coaster Build Off	2007-11-20	Griffon Griffon (roller coaster) Griffon is a roller coaster, announced on August 23, 2006, at Busch Gardens Europe, located in Williamsburg, Virginia. The coaster, a Bolliger & Mabillard Dive roller coaster, now reigns as tallest and fastest dive machine coaster surpassing its sister, SheiKra, at Busch Gardens Africa in Tampa, Florida.... a steel rollercoaster in Busch Gardens Europe Busch Gardens Europe Busch Gardens Williamsburg is a theme park located in James City County, Virginia, Virginia about 3 miles southeast of Williamsburg, Virginia. It opened on May 16, 1975, adjacent to the local Anheuser-Busch brewery and other-related AB developments including the Kingsmill complex.... and the Renegade Renegade (roller coaster) Renegade is a wooden roller coaster roller coaster at Valleyfair in Shakopee, Minnesota that was designed by Great Coasters International. Renegade's layout is a combination of an Out and Back roller coaster and a Twister roller coaster.... in Valleyfair	Under Construction	Complete
Mountain of Steel	2007-11-27	City of Culture of Galicia City of Culture of Galicia City of Culture of Galicia is a complex architectural environment under construction in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia , Spain. It was designed by architect Peter Eisenman and office, following an architectural design competition hosted by the Parliament of Galicia in February 1999....	Under Construction	Under Construction

External links

(Washington Post article)

Extreme Engineering

Origins of the show

Episode List

Engineering the Impossible

Season 1: 2003

Season 2: 2004

Season 3: 2005

Season 4: 2006

Season 5: 2006

Season 6: 2007

See also

External links