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Chinese Firms Claims It Can Build World's Tallest Tower in 90 Days
An anonymous reader writes "Even since the current world's tallest builing — the Burj Khalifa in Dubai — was completed, there has been a constant battle to build the world's next tallest building. The current record holder stands tall at 828 meters and took five years to build, but a Chinese company called Broad Sustainable Building aims to smash that record by building the 838 meter Sky City tower, in Changsa, China in a mere 90 days. BSB plans to use prefab building techniques to construct the tower in record time."
Absolutely nothing can go wrong....
P90X for architecture?
Misleading headline is misleading.
Cruise TT
-nt-
If you pre-fab everything on the ground then its not really "building", more like "assembling".
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
While it may have taken more than 90 days to build the Empire State Building, the same pre-fab techniques such as off-site fabrication and on-site assembly were used to build that monument to the American spirit.
Everyone scoffs at the Chinese when they boast like this, but there really isn't any particular problem with what they are proposing. Given enough lead time and sufficient raw materials, they should be able to assemble a world-record building in the timeframe specified. Naturally, some leeway may be necessary to account for weather, but other than that, good luck to them.
The building technique they use require building the material beforehand and then they simply erect it on site. It is misleading to say it can be "built" in 90 days...
Tomorrow is another day...
Built in 90 days, stays for 90 days?
"Firms Claims"
Well, from raising a 30 story building in 360 hours to erecting an 830 meter tower in 90 days... why not? Sure they can do it, that's what happens in free markets - innovation and competition.
You can't handle the truth.
The city is called Changsha. Apparently the linked article got it wrong (and thus the summary had it wrong, too, because it was just a verbatim copy), but the CNNgo article it linked to had it right. Go figure...
But for how long will it last? Just like the chinese produced stainless steel which rusts?
Is that "90 days from foundations" or "90 days from turf"? The concept art shows quite a fat design with a lot of mass, which in turn needs a good foundation (or the tower won't last for 90 days). And good foundations need time for the concrete to settle.
Imagine - this beasts' foundations dive on one side once the scyscraper is done (or nearly done). I wonder what the chinese equivalent to the warning shout "TIMBER" is...
You can get eggrolls, rice, wonton soup, and Szechuan chicken in 5 minutes...
... they ALL say it'll be done in 90 days. Right up to 11:30 on the 89th day, when realistically there is still six years of work to do, they'll still insist it'll be done in the next 30 minutes.
We have people fly half way around the world to work on projects. "Will you be ready for us?" we ask as we get on the plane. "Yes!" comes the resounding response. We arrive, discover the project is nowhere near ready, go home again, come back in anywhere from eight weeks to two years when it's actually ready and charge them a hefty chunk of cash for the inconvenience.
Wildly unrealistic schedules and dogged insistence that they're sticking to them in the face of all the evidence is the modus operandi of Chinese construction.
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
...and only a 16% labour fatality rate! Record breakers!
If you can make buildings at the rate they claim with preparation and modular techniques it should make it simple to recover after catastrophes as well. From housing to hospitals.
Create a few universal designs. Store modular components in select locations around the world under the management of the UN or such. Then when disaster strikes; like an earthquake/typhoon/hurricane; and housing or such is needed the items could be shipped. I am not saying it would be easy, but it should be doable and now on a larger scale.
If it reduces costs so much then it could simply be used in poor countries to help house people provided steps are taken not to turn them into centers of urban blight.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Skyscraper index here we come again!
As a structural engineer, I do not doubt at all that they are able, or anyone for that matter, to put together a prefab tower in 90 days. This is no big deal. For example, in bridge projects it's a terribly common thing to put together temporary structures assembled from tubular steel bars which are about 10-story tall, and there are pre-fabricated steel beams being marketed for this sort of temporary work which are about 20 or 24 meters tall.
And the only reason that these temp structures aren't taller is because in bridge works after about 20 meters the valleys tend to be wide enough so that it tends to be more economical to use other building techniques, such as incremental launch.
What I doubt is that this type of tower is economical or capable of handling the design loads for a specific region. After a certain scale, there are significant economical advantages to be had by optimizing structural elements, particular in steel structures, and "one size fits all" make it impossible to take advantage of this. Moreover, there isn't exactly a lot of demand for temporary skyscrappers. Even in cases where a catastrophy raises the need for temporary housing and infrastructure, you don't need a 1km-tall structure to sort things out.
My main concern is quality assessment and safety. If you are going to build a extremelly specialized and optimized structure intended to house tens of thousands people, you simply cannot rush things or cut corners on safety checks. If some bolts aren't screwed adequately, a lot of people can die. A couple of months ago there was a report on a chinese bridge being inaugurated while its safety railings weren't even bolted to the structure, which has been pointed out by a chinese engineer working on the project. If this sort of rush job is done with such a large structure, we have a calamity waiting to happen.
They'll find a way to cheat, they always do.
Reminds me of Big Fat Gypsy Wedding or Michael Carroll.
A rich scumbag will ALWAYS be a scumbag, despite having money (or pretending to have money). It's just that the mainland Chinese and the gulf Arabs haven't gotten the memo yet.
The Almighty will demolish that mandarin tower halfway in construction, so the han cannot scale into heaven and topple his sacred throne. He will then mix up the tongues of han people, so they will start to speak 1000 different, mutually exclusive dialects and that will be the end of the chinese empire. The jewish people will take over the entirety of the chinese land, as the Name promised the entire world to them, his chosen people.
You are asking the wrong questions. It's a cultural thing but if you ask a question that can be answered with "yes", that's all you're going to hear. You need to ask open questions. Instead of "is it going to be done on time?, ask "how far have you gotten?" and so forth. Even then it's not guaranteed that you'll get all the info you were looking for.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
If you build it sideways, you can make it as tall as you like. Anybody remember Wayside?
Can they do it? Sure they can! Of course the structure will be doubtful and can the building last long? Probably not! Not unlike most Chinese Products!
Well it reminds me of this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196064/Tumbling-tower-China-Amazing-pictures-13-storey-block-flats-toppled-over.html
Because now we have concrete and steel, the structure is better made from concrete and rebar, and I'm not sure I'd like to live in a building thats been put up in 90 days. If there's a snag, I'd rather be sure they fixed the snag and let the schedule slip than just cut a few 'unnecessary' steel joins.
The Sky Tower in Auckland, New Zealand is owned by the Sky City Casino, I wonder if there will be a trademark dispute over the clash in names.
I have doubts on building a 1/2 mile tall building in 90 days for any human country in 2012. Building a 15 story building in 4 days is impressive enough, and of economic value. Most buildings do not exceed 1,000 feet, because of rising costs.
...because the Chinese have long been known for their massive erections...
How do you post a Chinese translation of "Hey y'all, watch this!"?
I live in Shanghai and on the other side of the river in Pudong we have quite a lot of tall buildings (Jin Mao tower 420m, Oriental Perl Tower 468m, Shanghai World Financial Center 492m) so I have no doubt that the Chinese have had some 'inspiration' from western builders on how to construct a tower. But I am wondering how the soil can deal with such a rapid construction of such a tall, thus heavy, building. Where I come from, the Netherlands, we have to put in a pretty good foundation for our buildings or they will sink into the soil. I can imagine that if you want to build such a tall building you would need some more time to allow the soil to solidify more or you'll risk the building sinking...
So long China. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyscraper_Index
In beijing. The sparkly, new main train station was built in half the time normally required. 6 months later you could see daylight through the cracks in the ceiling. This is the real maoist legacy: make ridiculous claims, pretend you accomplished them, then blame running dog capitalists and rightists when it al blows up.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Hmmm, I thought everyone knew that Rome was built in a day! So the Italians know how to build things faster on a larger scale. That is, a whole city in a day whereas everyone else it trying to build one building in 90 days or less - or is that the whole city in one building going skyward.......
Hic Rhodus, hic salta
Yeah, 'cos that's just the sort of thing you want to do as absolutely fast as possible.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
10 metres on 828 is 1.2% higher, I'm not sure "smash" is really the adjective you're looking for.
Then Ron Jeremy proved them wrong. He said he can also double as a bridge.
Or this tower was brought to you by "Viagra".
Hmm... I'm not trying to feed the "it's Chinese so it must be crap" trolls but in any country do I want to be standing inside a building that tall and thinking that the workers were in such a hurry they did all of this in 90 days? Or for that matter do I want to be anywhere within it's fall area?
From what I know about skyscraper construction, the biggest challenge will be access to the site. There is just so much material that needs to be delivered to put up a building of that height at that pace, even if prefabricated.
I'm aware they built a hotel in 15 days, but this building is about 300x times larger by mass and they are only giving themselves 6x more time. This means they have to work at a 50x rate as compared to the previous project.
Conclusion: color me doubtful.
...the quickest to fall down.
I'm sure while they're rushing, they'll use the best possible construction methods and safety. You know, like Extreme Home Makeover where they rush the utility installs and use cement hardeners then there's a followup crew there fixing cracks and leaks for the next month.
I am going to register 10 companies in China today and start releasing exaggerated news. I bet some people on /. will die from the pain caused by the cognitive dissonance.
It's just that on day 92 it falls over.
It's like that came of who can build a card house "this high" the fastest. If you let the other complete their houses after the "fastest" has won, then stomp on the floor, guess which one falls right over?
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Does that 90 days include the time to ship and stage all the material, as well as the time to construct all the pre-fab units? They might be able to put it all together in 90 days, but I'll wager it will take a lot longer than that to get everything ready.
Proverbs 21:19
An Indian company as said that they can clean up the mess caused by the collapse of the Chinese building in only 60 days.
The Chinese have discovered how to make a building out of melamine???
Prefab + so short a time, I would be kinda worried.
I hope they go for quality instead of speed. China's stimulus program added thousands of miles of high speed railway. It is now the largest system in the world. But there have been some serious accidents attributed to poor quality.
Rome was built in a day? In what situation would that phrase even be useful? The proper phrase is Rome wasn't built in day. It's a cute way to say "be patient." Your phrase must mean "hurry the fuck up I could have built twelve Romes in this time."
The current record holder stands tall at 828 meters and took five years to build, but a Chinese company called Broad Sustainable Building aims to smash that record by building the 838 meter Sky City tower, in Changsa, China in a mere 90 days. BSB plans to use prefab building techniques to construct the tower in record time."
What is this company's track record? Have their prefab building techniques been used successfully in the past on smaller buildings? If so, how much smaller were they than the one they are planning to construct now? Do they have a good safety record?
Background information like this is important in order to determine whether they have a good chance of actually pulling this off, or if they're just blowing smoke.
I nominate "Jenga Tower"?
PE have the power to say NO to there boss over unsafe stuff.
Software Engineering you don't have power like that.
You know, really you are right, the Romans did build stuff fast and that would last that would not be surpassed until the industrial revolution. The Chinese also have a lot of man power but it takes more than that for something like they are planning. Maybe 3 years of building on the ground and then 90 days...no way anyhow.
I've played enough Human Revolution to know that this is just going to be one of many support struts that will be holding a massive aerial city up. Broad Sustainable Building is probably just a subsidiary of Versalife.
http://i.cubeupload.com/T6cyLu.png
Here in the States, we have several prefab solutions. The first is called SIP (structurally insulated panels). Then there is the Engineered Beams and Joists and don't forget Prefab Concrete Floors, Walls and various Panels. Simply put, Prefab is not a dirty word in the States as it's usually far better quality then site built. Hell it's even used in Ship Building, otherwise we'd not be able to afford the number of cruise and cargo ships that are built each year.
What does have the connotation of being cheap/low quality is mobile/manufactured homes as they've been around for many years. Most of them are built as cheaply as possible and it's damn near impossible to get a mortgage longer then 15 years for any such housing. Seriously, the entire Manufactured Housing Industry has earned its bad repuation because of the many companies who've built cheap/shoddy products.
To me, the most disturbing trend in Housing today is the lack of durability. Sure Custom Stick built should be more durable yet while Mobile/Manufactured Homes have gone up in durability (most are designed to last 20 years now) standard building has dropped from a 50 year durability to a 30 year lifespan. In other words, people fully expect any house that's pushing 20 years to be close to expiration and needing replacement. If you have to replace the damn house in 20 years, there is little reason to buy a custom built home and it shows in the cookie cutter templates used in some of the so called community development projects by various large builders (Lewis Homes/DelWeb). It's downright disgusting to me they can't/wont use prefab techniques such as SIP construction to ensure a consistent quality instead of the shoddy workmanship we sometimes see in large projects.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Would they call it Tower of Hanoi? And do the get points for turning it upside down?
I could build an even taller building in a shorter time. Just stack the prefab components up the side of a tall mountain. It won't even need an elevator, just leave a lane to drive up. And does the 90 days include the time to do all the prefab?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
This "prefab" technique they are referring to is a technique for erecting steel frame beams and such without having to weld on site. It's not "prefab" as in a prefab house, or standing up prefab panels, though the Chinese system does appear to incorporate more things (tiles, plumbing, etc) into the panels.
An American company that has been pioneering in this area is is ConXtech. The Watch ConXtech's videos on how it all works. It is pretty amazing. The Chinese system appears to be more labor intensive, but still gets the job done in a similar way. And while the ConXtech system requires no bolting whatsoever to place the beams at first and to carry real load, the Chinese method does involve a lot of bolting down. But still, no structural welders are needed on site, no additional, temporary braces. The exterior is clad in the usual way, and the interiors can be done normally, though the Chinese system does pre-fab some of the plumbing, floor, and ceiling onto the panels. Both the ConXtech and Chinese Broad system allow interior and exterior finishing to occur while the steel frame part is being erected. This is part of what makes it so darn fast.
Either way you look at it, the time to manufacture the beams, panels, etc, and ship them to the site, and then erect them is still a fraction of the time that conventional steel frame construction takes. So no, its not cheating. It really is a better way to do construction. And potentially cheaper too, or at least not any more expensive than traditional.
Anyway, I'm glad to see the technology demonstrated. And just to remind slashdotters who haven't read the blog post, this chinese construction company has already used the technology to build a 30 story hotel in 360 hours (the entire structural frame) from foundation up. And it also survived an earthquake quite nicely. ConXtech's system (which I think is superior to the chinese system) similarly can withstand earthquakes, and can do so before its even bolted down!
that does not mean that this company is going down the wrong path. In fact, far from it. Pre-fab is how you get things done quickly. We do it in software. You buy libraries to work with. The hope is that it means that the bulk of the code is tested by many. Same principle in OSS. Now, this company is doing pre-fab, hopefully, with loads of testing on the pieces, followed up with testing after they install the piece. Done right, this will be cheaper and faster.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Does the 90 days include the pre-fab building time? I've noticed that with big construction projects here in Wash, DC, the most time consuming part of the project is digging and preparing the 4-5 story foundation. Dirt is removed one truck at a time. Once that is done the buildings go up pretty quickly. The hotel that this company built in 360 hours did not have underground parking. Nonetheless it was a very impressive project.
An anonymous reader posts the first paragraph of their own article to Slashdot.
And oddly enough, fails to notice _again_ that they've claimed there's been a race to build the world's second-tallest tower.
To the original poster: If you're going to try to force your own article viral, get someone else to read it out-loud first. Or just read it at all...
I just noticed in the submission that the "link to original source" doesn't point at the article from which the summary was cut-and-paste, but the Chinese-language developer's site. You couldn't even bring yourself to admit you were forcing your own article viral? You'd have to be a Slashdot editor to fall for that...
Paul "TBBle" Hampson
Paul.Hampson@Pobox.Com
So basically they plan to spend several years prefabbing the components on the ground offsite, then in 90 days they erector-set the base structure together and say the "built" it in 90 days. I suppose that this construction technique would have advantages in some areas (bad weather, high winds, traffic, etc), but its hardly "building an entire building in 90 days"
it will come down in record time as well!
Of course, the Burj Khalifa doesn't even have this. http://boingboing.net/2011/11/08/what-happens-when-you-flush-a-toilet-in-the-worlds-tallest-building.html
I'd figure in a prestige building like that, when you flush the toilet, the sewage was routed directly out to shower on the little people below.
Why do you think they have the helipad?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
If I am going to be in a building that when I look out, and I see CLOUDS below me, I don't want it to be
built by the company that put it up the fastest LOL.
Back during the early days of the U.S. manned space program, a question was asked of one of the
rookie astronauts, if there was anything that scared him about flying into space...
"yeah, that I'm sitting on top of something that could blow up, that went to the LOWEST BIDDER".
Standard sized buildings and prices vary widely from location to location.
A few years ago the median house price in Detroit was $9600 - that's median, mind you.
Some spots in California on the cost - houses average 1.5-2 million for 1200 sqft starter homes...
According to the US Dept Commerce - the average new home price was $238k and the median price was about $282k
http://www.wsjprimerate.us/new_home_sales_price_history.htm
..........FULL STOP.
If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably isn't.
I'll believe it when I see it last for more than a year..There is a huge jump from designing a 15 story to a 100 story building. Some things just don't scale properly.
..........FULL STOP.
If they are prefabbing a big chunk of this offsite, are they really building it in '90 days'? By the same logic, I could have a car mostly built offsite, and then bring it all to my garage. Slap on the doors and the trunk, and LOOK, I built a car in 30 minutes! I'm awesome!
Try spending some time on the top floor of a tall building. That high up, the building actually gets blown about by the wind, and you can feel it moving. Super creepy and uncomfortable. No thanks.
From my office in NYC I can see the World Trade towers being constructed. There's all kinds of safety nets around the unfinished floors, mandated harnesses for staff who work outside, etc. I could see all of that type of safety procedures (which I'm sure is the same across the USA and Europe) ignored in the quest for completing the building on time. No doubt a few of these Chinese speed-building workers would die during the process (though no one would ever hear about it in the news).
This Chinese company maybe called BSB "Broad Sustainable Building"................ I have a feeling they should be called, "BS Builders".
towering inferno anyone?
We normally do it in 10 days. Although some have taken as long as 60 days.
Radio towers go up fairly quickly.
Towers are not the same as buildings.
I'm assuming the Chinese company is using a rule of thumb that the building has to stand one day longer than it took to build to be classified as "successful"?
Will they clearly mark that building as being the record holder? I'd like a little warning before I go anywhere near it.
Maybe they should use a name that isn't already used by the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere? http://www.skycityauckland.co.nz/Attractions/Welcome.html
Is it me, or is that a picture of Chicago with a enlarged Sears tower?
No matter how big a building they make, they'll be hungry for more in about an hour.
I would be interested to see what they mean by 90 days. Do they mean from initial breaking ground / piling of foundations through to dry paint on the walls?
I would think they just mean the structure, starting from the foundations, putting up columns and beams, having the 'building' there looking impressive. Then another x months for fit out. In modern construction it is not the structure that is the critical path, but the fitout.
For example, I worked as a site engineer on a 14 story hotel. We were constructing a floor every 8 days (precast beams, columns, precast floor planks, in situ floor topping). However, the time for fitout for each floor was more like 30 days total. Fit out has many more items to it that the structure (framing, first fix electrical plumbing and fire protection, insulation, wall sheeting, second fix everything, painting, ceilings, floor coverings, appliances, doors....). Fit out is also dependent on having a water tight building for the most part.
Pretty bold claim, I think they could do it, if they mean 'above ground' structure only.
What goes up quick comes down quick!
It seems you're surprised they can build a 15-floor building in 15 days. That may be unusual; what's more telling, to me, is the 15-floor experience.
This has JUST NOTHING to do with a real tower.
The surprising info in your search should be that apparently their only curriculum is in 15-floor building.
If this is true, then they won't even be selected as a contractor. In China like anywhere else.
Herve S.
They cannot start with an empty lot and construct such a tall building in 90 days. The foundation must be broad and deep and the reinforced concrete must be fully cured before any construction can begin. Of course, even in the US we discover instances where contractors cut corners on the quality of the concrete, such as the recently disclosed problems with the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.