For the final episode of season 2 we’re heading to Moscow on suggestion of a listener to learn about the history of the famously colourful St Basil’s Cathedral.

St Basil’s Cathedral is a monument of many colours and many names, with Vivan describing it as “a Disneyland looking castle with colourful vaguely onion shaped domes”, and John describing it as “the Sean ‘Puff Daddy’ Combs” of churches. Located in Moscow’s Red Square along with the Kremlin, St Basil’s Cathedral is actually a combination of 10 churches including what was originally known as the “Trinity Cathedral”

The Trinity Church was originally built out of wood in 1555 under direction of Russia’s first Tsar, Ivan IV, also knows as Ivan The Terrible. He would commission the building of a new church after each war he won, and by the end of his rampage the Trinity Church had been enclosed with 7 other churches, at which time he ordered the construction of the wooden Church Of Intersession, followed by orders a year later to replace the original wooden Trinity Church with a stone cathedral.

A number of legends surround Ivan IV and the cathedral, such as the cathedral being dedicated to his fourth son, the first who did not die within a year of birth and so was to be his heir, although it is said that living up to his name he later beat this son to death over a disagreement. Other myths or legends include the story a missing ninth church appearing by a miracle when Ivan touched the cathedral during its consecration ceremony in July of 1561, or the story of Ivan IV blinding the architect so that he could never recreate it or build anything so beautiful again. But since Yakovlev is later credited with more architectural work, it’s fairly likely this was just a big authoritarian brag.

As with any large scale monument a great deal of maintenance is required for it to stand the test of time. In the case of St Basil’s it was burned down in 1583, rebuilt 10 years later, and burned down once again in 1737 before being restored a second time in 1812. Later in 1812 Napoleon invaded and looted the church and ordered its demolition which was ultimately unsuccessful.

Yet another round of restorations were ordered in the early 1900s, but this were interrupted by the First World War and the communist revolution. While Vladimir Lenin quite liked the cathedral and ordered it to become a museum rather than be torn down, Stalin did not hold the same view and wanted it demolished so he could parade tanks through the Red Square. As dictators are known for terrible urban planning decisions, Petr Baranovsky, the man responsible for the surveying the site just prior to demolition, would refuse to complete this work, even threatening suicide to stop Stalin from moving forward. Ultimately he was successful in preventing the destruction of this monument, and by 1990 it was declared a UNESCO world heritage site, and following the fall of the USSR it now operates as both a museum and church, with ongoing restoration work being completed today.

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Image Gallery

Exterior | Interior 1 | Interior 2 | The Kremlin | Elevation/Plan Drawings | History of The Layouts |

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Music by: John Julius - Bandcamp.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio

This episode we’re back on the road(s) again! Vivian’s been itching to do another roads episode ever since the Via Appia all the way back at the start of season 1, and today we’re not just exploring one road but an entire road system: Norway’s tunnel highways.

The decision to take this podcast road trip through Norway started when Vivian was sent a YouTube video of one of Norway’s road systems, a tunnel leading to a roundabout inside the tunnel, with one leg exiting the roundabout into a giant suspension bridge back to yet another underground roundabout, which she describes as a “car disco.” Because of its rocky geography and many fjords, Norway is home to more than 900 road tunnels, included the longest road tunnel in the world measuring a whopping 24.5km long.

Back in 2009 Norway was ranked one of the worst countries in the world for road quality, lagging behind Portugal, Croatia, and the famously bankrupt Greece, and far behind other countries with similar economics and geography such as Sweden or Switzerland. One such road was the infamous E39 highway, which runs along the west coast of the country spanning 1,100km, but taking a full 21 hours to drive as a result of 7 separate ferry crossings along the way. In 2017 the decision was made to reinvest a portion of the country’s oil profits back into infrastructure and remove these ferry crossing as part of a scheme that would cost the equivalent of $50,000,000,000CAD, adding a number of bridges and tunnels and cutting the travel time by half through a series of mega projects.

Many of these projects involve mind boggling civil engineering feats, such as the Rogfast, which will be longest sub-sea tunnel in the world once completed, a full 26.7km long and going as deep as 392 metres below sea level, and will include a diamond-style undersea interchange complete with two separate roundabouts. In addition to the challenges of building the road and tunnels themselves, other challenges will include robust ventilation systems, fire safety systems, electrical systems, and even special types of concrete that will self seal cracks under explosive pressure to protect against potential terrorist attacks.

The innovations involved in the modernization of the E39 will also include some rare structures like floating bridges, and even never-before built structures such as underwater, floating tunnels, suspended by floating concrete pontoons to allow for boat passage through the fjords. This sort of innovation is exemplary of Norway’s future-facing transportation strategy, and as such it is no surprise that the country has the world’s largest fleet of electric plug-in vehicles, per capita, with more than half of vehicles sold in 2019 being electric.

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Image/Video Gallery

Vallavik tunnel (underground roundabout) | Vallavik Tunnel to Hardanger Bridge video | Hardanger bridge | Trollstigen Road | Rogfast Undersea Junction | Coastal Highway Project Map (courtesy of The Norwegian Public Roads Administration)

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Learn more at: MeasuredInMetric.com | Facebook | Instagram

Music by: John Julius - Bandcamp.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio

From Basilica to Cathedral to Mosque to Museum, this episode’s monument spans across 1,600 years, multiple empires, and centuries upon centuries of dedicated engineers and architects keeping it in proper repair: The Hagia Sofia

In the city that today is known as Istanbul, the first iteration of the Hagia Sofia was built in 360AD, at a time when the city was still known as Byzantium. Constructed out of wood, it was burned to the ground during riots, then rebuilt once again out of wood in 415AD only to be once again burned during riots. Then in 537AD under Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I, and supervised by engineer Anthemius of Tralles the Hagia Sofia was rebuilt out of stone, and has stood to this day.

Under the Eastern Roman Empire, each new Emperor would add to, repair or extend the Hagia Sofia, up until the 13th century when the city and the Hagia Sofia itself were looted by the Venetian Crusaders. All the gold and silver were stripped from the building and it would be converted in purpose from a Byzantine Orthodox Basilica to a Roman Catholic Cathedral as the city changed from Byzantium to Constantinople.

The now Cathedral would change hands again when Constantinople was conquered by Mehmed II and renamed to Istanbul, this time changing from a Catholic Cathedral to an Islamic Mosque. Under Mehmed II additions would be made such as wooden minarets, it’s famous giant chandelier, and some additional parts to facilitate Islamic prayer traditions. Painting of Jesus and other Christian iconography was covered with plaster rather than removed or destroyed, which allowed for these icons to later be restored prior to the Turkish president secularizing the building in 1934 and turning it into a Museum. History for the monument is still being written, as just this year Turkish President Erdogan has covered it back to a Mosque, with Christian imagery this time concealed behind curtains.

Beyond the monument’s changing hands, the Hagia Sofia provides us an opportunity to learn about the Eastern Roman building techniques the allowed for the monument’s iconic and surprisingly thing dome, 6th century fireproofing methodology, and some theorizing around how Pi would have been approximated at this time in history.

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Image Gallery

Mary & Jesus Mosaic | Dome and Pendentives | Interior with crowd | Islamic Symbols and Christian Mosaic side by side | Exterior view of Hagia Sofia | A very young Vivian & John

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Learn more at: MeasuredInMetric.com | Facebook | Instagram

Music by: John Julius - Bandcamp.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio

Just how many black rhinos could Canada launch into orbit? What exactly is a satellite constellation? What is the Canadian Space Agency doing to help protect Canadians from natural disasters? With the help of special guest Geneviève Houde, Systems Engineer for the CSA, we answer all of these questions in this week’s episode.

Nearly all of our episodes so far have focused on civil engineering monuments, and certainly all of them have been securely planted on earth. With this episode taking us off-planet and into orbit we have an opportunity to break down the difference between Civil Engineering and other disciplines needed for projects like the RADARSAT Constellation Mission (or RCM) such as Mechanical Engineering. The short version? If it moves, it’s not civil! So to make sure we’ve got all our facts straight we talked with CSA Systems Engineer about her history with the Canadian Space Agency and how the RCM works.

The RCM is project 15 years in the making, and an effort of 300 people from 50 companies across Canada, and 125 suppliers from 7 different provinces. This nationwide project reached earth’s orbit with the help of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket in June 2019 and became fully operational in November. The “constellation” in RCM refers to this mission being made up of three separate satellites that circle the globe every 96 minutes, with their orbits evenly spaced to provide near complete coverage of the earth at any time.

These satellites are just 3.6m high, barely 1m wide, and just under 2m deep, and weighing 1430kg each, roughly the weight of a black rhino! They orbit the earth at 600km high, twice the distance of the ISS, and their tiny size and massive distance combined makes them naked to the human eye. But this distance is no obstacle for the RCM’s imaging technology, and neither is smoke, rain, clouds, or other atmospheric obstructions. Using Synthetic Aperture RADAR the RCM sends packets of information to earth which reflect back up to the satellites for three main purposes: maritime surveillance, disaster management, and ecosystem monitoring.

Surveillance can be a bit of a scary topic, so we take some time to ease John’s conspiracy concerns while also discussing how you can access the RCM’s images yourself, with the help of a resource provided by the CSA.

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Geneviève Houde: bio | headshot

Canadian Space Agency: website | facebook | twitter | instagram | RADARSAT Constellation Mission Project | how to access RCM images

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Image Gallery

Image of the RADARSAT Constellation | RCM vibration testing | RCM Illustration

Image Credits: Canadian Space Agency

RCM Ready to be launched

Image Credit: SpaceX

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Learn more at: MeasuredInMetric.com | Facebook | Instagram

Music by: John Julius - Bandcamp.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio

This episode comes via special request from a listener, and is the first engineering project of its kind on the podcast: The Port of Buenos Aires.

Being the first port on the podcast we get the opportunity not just to discover the history of the project itself but also to learn about the complex multidisciplinary field of port engineering. This field requires a wide array of expertise ranging from naval architecture and the hydrodynamics of ships to geotechnical engineering, record keeping, security, navigation, logistics, and much more.

Located in the capital of Argentina, the Port of Buenos Aires handles as much as 85% of the cargo shipped into the country today. However getting to this point the project had to work through a great deal of bad luck and unfortunate timing. When Buenos Aires was first established as a port city by the Spanish back in 1580, the water level along the coastline required passengers and goods to be transferred from larger ships to smaller ships and then brought to shore.

Nearly 3 centuries later in 1868 the Argentine congress commissioned technical studies to build a more modern port in order to support more modern trade. As with many projects, this was held up by internal politics for a full 3 years, but eventually a pier was built that stretched out into the water so smaller ships could dock there, a method that is still seen around the world particularly in tourist destinations. In 1884 the design of a major 4 dock complex would be started by Sir John Hawkshaw, the former president of the UK’s Institute of Civil Engineers. The first of these 4 docks would be completed in 1888 and just two years later Argentina would be hit by The Panic, a financial crisis resulting from a London bank facing bankruptcy as a result of taking on risk on poor investments in Argentina. While ultimately Argentina was able to recover from The Panic it would severely delay the construction of the port, stretching out the completion of the project to 1897.

The turn of the 20th century was sa time of rapid advancement and quick progress, which unfortunately meant the port would quickly be obsolete for servicing new larger ships and it had completely reached capacity by 1907. Plans for new docks would be approved in 1911 but these plans were also severely delayed, this time by the first World War. These expansions were finally completed fifteen years later in 1926, and those expansions are largely how the port remains today.

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Learn more at: MeasuredInMetric.com | Facebook | Instagram

Music by: John Julius - Bandcamp.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio

For our first monument on the African continent we examine the The Great Zimbabwe. This Iron Age city in southern Africa lies mostly in ruins today, but at the height of its power between the 11th and 15th century housed as many as 20,000 people. We’ll discuss what we know about this site today, and how colonialism stands in the way of a more complete picture of its history.

The ruins of The Great Zimbabwe extend over an enormous 80 hectares or 800,000 km², dwarfing the size of modern cities such as Toronto at only 630 km². This massive settlement was a major trade centre for crops, animals, gold, as well as minerals, with ample evidence of their trade routes extending as far as China. It is estimated that over 3 centuries more than 40% of the world’s mined gold came from this area, which is supported by the more than 4000 gold mines and 500 copper mines surrounding the site, in addition to the roughly 2000 goldsmiths, potters, weavers, blacksmiths, and stonemasons living in the area.

The layout and construction of The Great Zimbabwe exhibits an impressive level of architectural planning, and the settlement even had its own drainage system that is largely still functional today, centuries later. It is made up of 3 main zones, the hill complex being the oldest dating back to the 9th century, which was used as the spiritual and religious centre of the city up until the 13th century. The surrounding zone, known as the great enclosure is the most iconic part of the city featuring a huge circular wall made up of cut granite blocks a whopping 5m thick and as much as 11m high. This wall is made up of as many as 900,000 professionally sliced individual blocks held together without any mortar, just sheer gravity and precision. The conical tower at the centre of the great enclosure is constructed with the same high precision methods, and the outer wall is decorated with soapstone sculptures of a bird that is also featured on Zimbabwe’s flag. The final zone, known as the valley complex, was made up largely of living spaces and could be considered the suburbs of the city. This area was home to the thousands of artisans and the trade centres that sustained the city.

By the end of the 15th century the city was largely abandoned, possibly because of soil destruction leading to the supporting agriculture no longer being upkeep. The reasons for this city being abandoned may be lost to time as a result of rampant plundering of the site during the 19th and 20th century by Europeans. For over a century these colonists were in denial about the city being built by the African people, and in addition to attributing the construction to Biblical myths there was active destruction of evidence at the site. These efforts at obstruction of history continued right up until 1979 and included the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia issuing official guidebooks showing images of Africans bowing down to foreigners who had supposedly built The Great Zimbabwe. This came to an end in 1980 when the country gained independence from Britain and was renamed to Zimbabwe in honour of the site. The ruins were named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1986 and while the general consensus now is that it was built by the ancestors of the Shona people, much of the history is still unknown, having either destroyed or plundered, or not yet uncovered.

CORRECTION: The audio and show notes for this episode indicate that The Great Zimbabwe extended over 800,000 km², which is incorrect. The Great Zimbabwe extended over 800,000 m²

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Image Gallery

Site | Narrow curved passageway | Conical tower | Entrance | Soapstone Birds

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Music by: John Julius - Bandcamp.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio

In honour of International Women in Engineering Day on June 23rd we’re breaking the usual format to share a panel-style interview featuring current and former colleagues of Vivian, Pippa Higgins and Arianne Cowx.

Throughout this episode John interviews Vivian, Arianne, and Pippa, looking for insights from their personal experiences within the engineering industry. Throughout this discussion we explore concepts including workplace diversity, being bullied by clients or having their credentials questioned, the importance of role models, mentors and allies, and the work that each of them are most proud to have put their stamp on.

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Vivian Yu is a Professional Civil Engineer and Project Manager with Mott MacDonald, specializing in transit infrastructure. Vivian has experience working across Canada from Western Canada to Ontario, and globally in the US and Australia as well.

Vivian Yu: linkedin | photo - Vivian on top of tracks she designed | photo - Willis Way Grand River Transit station | photo - University of Waterloo Grand River Transit station

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Pippa Higgins is a Chartered Civil Engineer and Senior Design Manager at Mott MacDonald with over 20 years of experience with design, construction, and management of large multidisciplinary projects. She is currently on the Women in Transportation Seminar (WTS) mentoring program and is an active promoter of women in engineering.

Pippa Higgins: linkedin | photo - Orion Building, Birmingham, UK

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Arianne Cowx is a Professional Civil Engineer and Project Engineer with Parsons. Her experience has primarily been in the transit and transportation realm, ranging from heavy rail projects to major highway construction.

Arianne Cowx: linkedin | photo - QEW Welland River Bridge | video - Dougall Pedestrian Underpass and Multi-Use Trail

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Learn more at: MeasuredInMetric.com | Facebook | Instagram

Music by: John Julius - Bandcamp.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio

Spanning over 20,000km and connecting eras of China’s history across more than two millennia, this episode we discuss an engineering monument visible from low earth orbit, The Great Wall of China.

In the west we typically learn that the wall was built to protect northern China from Mongolian invaders but the true story is a bit more complicated. The history of the Great Wall dates all the way back to the 7th century BCE, before the unification of China. At the time the region that makes up modern day China was home to a number of civilizations who built a number of walls to protect themselves from each other, and many of these smaller walls would later be joined under the rule of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, in the 3rd century BCE.

This first iteration of the unified Great Wall was built to protect China’s capital at the time, Xi’an, as well as the silk road trade route, although most of this wall does not exist today. Nearly a century later during the Ming dynasty (the period of time made famous by the movie “Mulan”) there was a need for a much more robust wall as conflicts with Mongolia had evolved into a war between the two countries.

We typically discuss the budget of the projects on the podcast, but due to a lack of written records from the time beyond songs and poetry and due to the fact that the wall was built, re-built, and maintained over the course of many centuries it is impossible to accurately estimate the cost in a monetary sense. Some researchers estimate it may have taken roughly 90,000 man-hours to construct, although this estimate may not be too accurate given the constant repairs and fortifications made to the wall.

After Mongolia ceased to be a military threat to China many parts of the wall were taken down to be used for building materials for cities and villages, and some other parts simply eroded away. Many other sections of the wall still stand today and are maintained as tourist attractions. The Great Wall has been declared one of the 7 wonders of the modern world by UNESCO, is generally the only human made structure to be included in the topography of maps, and is often said to be visible from the moon. However, NASA has confirmed this is not the case, although it is visible from orbit.

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Image Gallery

The Great Wall | Great Wall map | Great Wall from Space (NOT visible from the moon confirms NASA) | Great Wall through the desert | Rammed earth section | In the snow

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Learn more at: MeasuredInMetric.com | Facebook | Instagram

Music by: John Julius - Bandcamp.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio