Building Impossible: The mega-sphere that can be seen from space and the world’s biggest cruise liner explored
If you were asked to think back to your childhood dream job - what comes to mind? Astronaut? Ballerina? Police Officer? Daniel Ashville has been obsessed with all-things construction since he was a child, dropping-out of university to pursue his passion. Now he's got a show with National Geographic and tells us all about it.
Transcript
00:00 Well, I was the kid who had all the Lego sets, all the train sets, trying to put together
00:05 the set of Lego without reading the instructions, which takes about 10 times as long.
00:09 You do get there in the end, but it takes a much longer period of time.
00:12 Train sets around the living room, walking to school with the dust truck was there.
00:16 My mom and I had to stop because I was trying to look at the hydraulic rams and how it drove
00:21 and what the guys were doing.
00:23 Obsessed with it my entire childhood.
00:26 I began to create my own content showcasing what my business did, National Geographic,
00:32 and some producers saw it, they approached me and they said, "What would you do if you
00:37 could create any show?"
00:40 We spoke about building impossible, and here we are today.
00:44 From the world's largest ocean crossing cruise liner to a new light-up megasphere in Las
00:48 Vegas, the MSG Sphere.
00:51 The greatest feats in design and construction can leave us wondering, how did humans manage
00:55 this?
00:56 In fact, 62% of us admit they find it mind-bending to think about how some modern buildings have
01:02 been constructed, with one in six having fun by coming up with their own theories.
01:06 Now the truth is revealed in Daniel's six-part series.
01:10 I think on the whole, people, they look at massive structures and they believe, "Wow,
01:16 how is that possible?"
01:18 And they're in awe of it, of what we can do.
01:21 So the point of the show is that I actually work with the teams and I break it down into
01:27 layman's terms.
01:29 I am definitely participating, I am not a spectator.
01:33 There will be no standing around and pointing.
01:36 I'm on the ground, shoulder to shoulder with the teams.
01:39 I'm also in the offices with the architects and engineers.
01:42 I break it down and I explain bit by bit how these massive structures are made.
01:47 Yeah, it's a six-part series and you're going to be focusing on six different groundbreaking
01:54 constructions.
01:55 Can you tell us about some of the different buildings that feature?
01:58 MSG in Las Vegas, which is a completely spherical building.
02:02 The entire outside of the building is basically a massive TV screen, which can be seen from
02:08 space.
02:09 Then we build the world's biggest cruise ship.
02:13 The biggest shipyard in Finland with the biggest crane in Finland, lifting the glass and steel
02:19 aquadome, what actually sits on top of it.
02:22 We went to the Alps as well.
02:24 We were digging underneath the Alps on the Italian side and the Austrian side, both digging
02:30 with different methods to get to the border to create the world's longest rail tunnel.
02:36 In South Africa, we build a bridge in a remote location, what's going to connect two parts
02:42 of the country which previously weren't connected over a gorge full of wildlife.
02:48 Daniel takes a deep dive into the six architectural marvels he visited over the course of the
02:53 series and the mammoth efforts that it took to construct them.
02:57 Episodes of Building Impossible with Daniel Asheville air on National Geographic each
03:01 Thursday until the finale on the 19th of October.