Profiles fifty unusual structures, include a fire-breathing octopus sculpture, a giant skateboard ramp, a Costa Rican treehouse community, and a life-sized X-Wing Starfighter built of LEGO bricks.

Filmed in October 2008 at the second international conference on the changing state of materials in architecture with the participation of prominent architects and engineers, hosted by Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture. Concrete is entering a renewed era of development with worldwide implications and under radically new economic circumstances. What are the futures of concrete in architecture and engineering in terms of technologies...

Filmed in September/October 2009 at the third Columbia Conference on architecture, engineering and materials. Few concepts are as central in structural engineering as the ability of a material to sustain plastic deformation under tensile stress. The standardization of historically known deformation limits or ductile properties in most materials allows architects and engineers to keep the analysis of structure within known parameters of finite element...