I am a design/build architect/construction worker. I know a respectable amount about design, architecture, and construction and I’m sort of a snob about it.

To me, it all too often that television shows blow learning opportunities to teach design and construction methods. This is why Build It Bigger is my favorite television show and this is all thanks to Danny Forster.

To begin, the visuals are fantastic. As a designer, I appreciate the highlighted maps that really communicated the distance between the Torre Espacio (Space Tower) and its materials yard. This is a move I learned in architecture school and my guess is that our Harvard graduate host did as well. Additionally, the use of computer renderings as visually is also highly successful. Take the Trump Tower rendering for example. Danny uses this to convey a key design point of this building – that its setbacks relay the language of its historical neighbors by mimicking their heights. With this SOM pays its respect to the famous Chicago skyline and its architects Mies Van Der Rohe and Goldberg. By using highly assessable visuals, Danny conveys these ideas to his audience in a way that we can all understand, whether we are designers or not. This is teaching design to the masses and THIS RARELY HAPPENS. THANK YOU DISCOVERY AND DANNY FORSTER!

Moving beyond design, his construction knowledge and his ability to communicate it have vastly increased since the days of “Extreme Engineering.” Where as before the show centered around making fun of the architect on the job (which was funny for a few episodes) Build It Bigger is now centered on the impressive feats that the crews accomplish everyday and Danny is right there with them. Above all, he’s really funny doing it. I almost peed my pants when Danny bolts into the jobsite with an empty tool belt, save for the T-square he drops as he enters with the line, “Ok let’s build a skyscraper!” You can’t script stuff like that, and it happens all the time on this show.

Danny, in addition to the education, thanks for the laughs.

Thank you for this post. You seem very knowledgeable, and it is good to see something positive about Danny. I think he does a good job, and I think this show is very educational. I also think it showcases people who deserve the recognition, the men and women who actually do the construction. Quite often what they do is dangerous, but they do not seem to notice. They are very much at home in the sky. I would be scared to death. Thank you, Discovery, for bringing us this show.

cphill583 I applaud you and your extremely positive post!! I could not have expressed it better myself!!

man, it's nice to read a positive post contributed my a person that knows the subject matter. thanks!