THINKING BIG : Photo Essay : Machines, Muscles & Minds

Boring beneath the English Channel, 31 miles with high-tech tools, or climbing bamboo stages to top out an eight-story building in Southeast Asia, men and women take the chances, raise the sweat and make the hundreds of decisions, large and small, that change the face of the earth.

There are earthmovers the size of houses, hydraulic systems of incredible strength, computers and lasers, but two hands, a strong back and a honed skill make the human being the key element in building. Historically, tens of thousands of laborers worked on projects such as the Pyramids of Giza and are sometimes seen as hapless beasts. But their descendants, working with skills passed down through the millennia, built today’s great buildings, dams and bridges.

In Africa, Asia and South America, workers, architects and engineers benefit from leaps of technology far greater that the size of their projects. Giant steam shovels chew at the face of a mountain, creating new mountains of rubble to be hauled away by monstrous trucks. Together, they are changing the face of the Earth.