This week’s episode of NOVA’s “Building Stuff” features the story of 1000M and an interview with MKA Senior Principal David Fields, who was the Project Manager for the tower!
As Engineer of Record for the project, MKA worked with esteemed architect Jahn and McHugh Construction to complete the latest icon of the Chicago skyline. Located near Grant Park in downtown Chicago’s South Loop neighborhood, the 74-story 1000M partially cantilevers over a low-rise building to minimize the use of glass on its south face to better blend with the other historic structures at ground level along Michigan Avenue. A two-story “cut” at the 20th floor separates the podium and lower floors from the building’s upper floors. Between the 22nd floor and the 73rd floor, the rectangular floorplate shifts to a parallelogram shape, and at the top, huge, tuned mass dampers help control building sway and vibration for occupants in the Windy City. All in all, 1000M is an engineering showstopper.
“There’s nothing like capturing something new being created—which is what engineers do—and we were fortunate to find a diverse group of engineers and film them in action for ‘Building Stuff.’ The uncertain outcomes helped focus the efforts of both our team and the engineers, and provided for exciting storytelling,” said Executive Producer for Pellet Productions, Tod Mesirow. “We kept thinking of Thomas Edison and his team going through hundreds and thousands of attempts to find the right filament to create artificial light. We managed to find those light bulb moments and combine the stories together into new episodes of NOVA.”
Launched in NOVA’s 50th anniversary year and premiering on the heels of the “Building Stuff with NOVA” Twitch livestream series finale, “Building Stuff” is a three-part documentary series that follows engineering experts as they build projects that help humanity to amplify our natural abilities, explore uncharted reaches of Earth and space, and preserve our planet’s environment. The series invites audiences to experience the ups and downs with engineers as they design, build, and test their way through various challenges.
“Building Stuff: Reach it!” premiers Wednesday, November 20, at 6 p.m. on PBS. The series will also be available for streaming at pbs.org/nova, on NOVA’s YouTube Channel, and on the PBS app.