PickVidsBest Civil engineering & construction Videos
The 70 Civil engineering & construction videos here were recommended by different people across different months. Choose by who it is for: 3 introductory, 2 intermediate, 65 for a general viewer, and 0 for someone who wants the harder derivation. Most of them are an explainer. What they share is that one picture or analogy is used to supply a missing concept. Channels you will keep seeing include Practical Engineering, Tom Scott, Kirsten Dirksen.
Distinguished Lecturer Series: Building Science - Adventures in Building Science
A Berkeley Lab Distinguished Lecturer talk on building science, with an expert covering control layers, insulation and vapour barrier placement, and how buildings fail.
Sand Castle Holds Up A Car! - Mechanically Stabilized Earth
Practical Engineering explains Mechanically Stabilized Earth, where layers of reinforcement make soil strong enough to hold heavy loads, shown with a sand structure supporting a car.
Fred Dibnah How to climb a chimney overhang at 50+
Footage of British steeplejack Fred Dibnah climbing a chimney overhang at over fifty years old, without a harness.
This Swiss Builder uses NO INSULATION...
Builders Matt Risinger and Jordan Smith visit a Swiss cross-laminated timber factory that makes thick all-wood walls with no traditional insulation and wooden nails instead of glue or chemicals.
What Happens When Maths Goes Wrong? - with Matt Parker
Matt Parker's Royal Institution talk based on his book Humble Pi, covering everyday mathematical mistakes and spurious patterns that went wrong in engineering and software.
Boeing 777 Wing Test
A short video of a Boeing 777 wing being tested to destruction, finally breaking at 154 percent of its designed limit load.
The 100 Year Flood Is Not What You Think It Is (Maybe)
Practical Engineering explains what a 100-year flood actually means, combining statistics, hydrology and how society treats risk.
Fred Dibnah laddering a chimney (Part 1)
Fred Dibnah, the English steeplejack, shows how ladders are fixed up the outside of a tall brick mill chimney.
Underground dome house of the family who led geese to fly home
Kirsten Dirksen tours the underground ferro-cement dome home of Paula and Bill Lishman, the family behind the geese-led flight story.
This high-speed rail project is a warning for the US
A Vox explainer on why California's high-speed rail project is years late and far over budget, with only a few concrete structures built by 2022.
The Surprising Efficiency of Canal Locks
Practical Engineering explains how canal locks work, including the water-saving basins of the new Panama Canal locks.
Why Everywhere in the US is Starting to Look the Same
Wendover Productions explains why American towns, retail and buildings increasingly look alike, covering zoning pressures, corporate standardization and cheap construction types like 5-over-1 buildings.
Infrastructure: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
A John Oliver Last Week Tonight segment on America's crumbling infrastructure and why maintenance is neglected and underfunded.
Are NEW Chinese buildings really FALLING DOWN?
The ADVChina hosts tour a villa neighborhood in southern China that was built only three years earlier and is already empty and deteriorating.
Why North America Can't Build Nice Apartments (because of one rule)
About Here explains how North American building codes requiring two staircases make small multi-story apartment buildings hard to build, and contrasts this with places that allow single-stair designs.
Blower Door Test
Matt Risinger demonstrates a blower door test on a house, using a fan to measure air leakage and find where air gets in and out.
What Really Happened at the Millennium Tower?
Practical Engineering explains why San Francisco's Millennium Tower is sinking and tilting, covering how geology and foundation design (friction piles in the Colma Formation) affect skyscrapers.
Why Are 96,000,000 Black Balls on This Reservoir?
Veritasium rides a boat across the Los Angeles reservoir covered in 96 million black plastic balls.
Well There's Your Problem | Episode 46 : Five-over-Ones
An episode of the Well There's Your Problem podcast on five-over-one buildings, wood-frame floors atop concrete bases, with engineering background and some oil industry news.
Amazing: The Rebuilding the MacArthur Maze (Documentary)
A half-hour television special on the 2007 fiery collapse of a connector in the Bay Area's MacArthur Maze and its rebuilding in 26 days.
Commie Blocks Are Pretty Good, Actually
Adam Something gives a short, tongue-in-cheek defense of Soviet-era prefab apartment blocks.
8LU - Are we *really* engineers? by Hillel Wayne
Hillel Wayne reports on interviews with 17 people who have worked as both software and traditional engineers.
Fire test: wooden house vs. ordinary house
A short unscientific fire test comparing a massive timber house with an ordinary house.
BBC How They Dug the Victoria Line
A 39-minute BBC documentary, built from earlier British Transport Films footage, on how the London Underground's Victoria Line was dug in the 1960s.