Chinese Firms Claims It Can Build World's Tallest Tower in 90 Days 389
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."
Just like their trains... (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely nothing can go wrong....
Re:Just like their trains... (Score:5, Interesting)
As long as it remains upright [izismile.com].
Re:Just like their trains... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wonder who's now living in the identical buildings next to it.
Re:Just like their trains... (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I the only one feeling a bit uneasy about this thread? Some Chinese construction projects are underfunded and of poor quality, therefore all Chinese buildings are crap? Some Chinese products are rip-off of foreign products, therefore all Chinese tech is copied? All Chinamen talk funny therefore all Chinamen dumb?
Maybe I'm just reading too much into it. In this specific case we simply don't know enough about it to come to any conclusion. Occasionally Boeing or Airbus aircraft crash due to shoddy constructing, faulty equipment (that they knew was faulty), improper maintenance due to the airline being cheap and so forth. In that case we look at the nature of the problem and decide if the entire fleet is at risk, and if not happily get on the next flight of an identical aircraft flying a near identical route. Blanket assumptions about all EU/US products do not follow.
Re:Just like their trains... (Score:5, Interesting)
You sir are incredibly insightful. I researched this company and this topic. In the local paper they described how this company managed to build a 15 floor building in 15 days! Yes 15 days!
The reason why this company can do what it can is because it builds these buildings using a pre-fab approach. North American's, and Europeans partially are not yet used to prefab houses. In Europe it is slowly trickling in, but nobody wants them to be built because they seriously undercut the housing lobby. Take for Ikea homes. Yes Ikea sells homes, using this method. They are cheaper than any other home. Look at this Ikea home for 86 K, which includes everything in the inside as well.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2108775/Ikea-launches-80-000-flat-pack-DIY-house.html [dailymail.co.uk]
It is hard to beat with all appliances and furniture of 86K. Now is it the final dream? No not really since Ikea is just partnering with a prefab company. BUT imagine if the Chinese managed to put it all together like this company. Then the west has serious issues!!!
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You are comparing the price of the *building* to the price of what? An entire lot with a home built on it? The lot is the expensive part!
Re:Just like their trains... (Score:5, Interesting)
And whether or not you want (or are required to have) water, electricity, gas, and sewage disposal
Yes, most people don't realize that about half of a building is site preparation. Putting in all the utilities and building a strong foundation is key.
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 [boingboing.net]
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Building a "standard" building (1000 sq ft home) in the US costs about $250,000-350,000 without the lot (just building costs).
Nonsense. That figure might be accurate for a 3000-sq-ft McMansion, but a 1000 sq ft house is nowhere near that much, unless you're demanding that everything be WAY overbuilt.
Re:Just like their trains... (Score:4, Informative)
A 3000 sq ft home on a $40k lot costs about $200k-$250k to build in central Ohio. I don't know where your numbers are coming from...
And to the GGP, prefab homes are all over the USA. You won't find them in big cities, but the country has a significant number of them. They aren't a good investment, as they are always the crappiest home in the area and fall apart far quicker.
Re:Just like their trains... (Score:5, Interesting)
That depends on the technology being used. Take ecolite concrete for example. I looked into it, and although prefab, it is pretty amazing stuff.
All steel and a special mixture of concrete. Amazing properties for fire resistance, insulation, strength, etc. All of the 3rd party test reports are available.
They just replace the load bearing structures and wall framing which is a pretty huge part of the cost and time. You can put up the entire framing of a house in 1-2 days and it will be far more durable and stronger than any wood framing could hope to be.
After that you can put up whatever you want against the ecolite walls. Sheetrock and textured walls, wood, whatever you want. It's up to you.
Hard to say that a steel and concrete house with amazing properties (I forgot to mention the acoustic properties) is crappier and will far apart quicker.
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Depends on where you live....there are many cities where $250K will get you between 2000-3000 sq ft easily.....
I chuckle when I see 500sq ft 'shacks' on tv for sale in the Los Angeles area for like near a mi
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Perhaps on either coast (and even that depends on where on the coast) your numbers may be close, but anywhere in between those numbers are quite a bit high.
Around these parts (midwest, large city) you can get 2 acres and a 2500+ square foot home for 250-350k dollars without much effort.
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$250,000-300,000 for 1000 square foot house???? WTF are they building it out of gold bricks? $40-50 a square foot should get you a bare bones house. up to around $100 a square foot will get you a really nice place.
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North American's, and Europeans partially are not yet used to prefab houses.
What? If you have been anywhere outside of suburbia, manufactured homes (pre-fabricated homes) are abundant in the US. A local manufactured house maker has one listed at roughly the same square footage as the IKEA one (IKEA = 742 sq. ft., Local = 768 sq. ft.) for MUCH less. The IKEA is $116 per square foot. The local is $56 per square foot. That includes kitchen and two bathroom appliances, bedroom furniture, washer/dryer, and water heater. That's a difference of around $60 per square foot for beds and trin
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It looks just like a mobile home minus the wheels. You can buy one with applienaces and furniture easily for under 86k.
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North American's, and Europeans partially are not yet used to prefab houses.
Hey, don't lump us N. Americans in with the Europeans! We love us some trailer park! If you don't believe me, just watch any tornado report.
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Land and all included with comparable price.
http://www.palmharbor.com/our-homes/movein-ready-homes/sr-movein-ready/mir-127352-2-0-REO/ [palmharbor.com]
Re:Just like their trains... (Score:5, Insightful)
I happen to be in structural engineering, and I have to say that you clearly don't know what you are talking about. I'll tell you why.
Nowadays, and for a couple of decades now, there isn't a single european contractor who does not rely on prefabrication. Concrete structures tend to make this a bit harder to pull, but their building cost is so much lower than steel structures that the extra time spent on a project easily offsets costs. Even then, there are quite a number of prefab structural elements and modules, such as pre-slabs and composite slabs with profile steel sheeting, that help out a lot. With steel structures, even with composite slabs, it's quite easy to put up high numbers of floors in a limited number of days. The only limit that affects this is how fast you can hoist the beam and column elements, and how fast your crew is able to set the necessary connections.
I suspect that in the US it's even more widespread. There are companies which even put together factories to assemble entire houses in assembly lines, and steel construction is much more widespread than concrete.
So, your comment on the use of prefab techniques is obviously bullshit.
Then, regarding your conspiracy theory, it is once again bullshit. To start off, as any product on earth, housing prices aren't defined by construction costs, but only on what clients are willing to spend on them. Meanwhile, construction costs, with today's technology, basically depends only on what finishings the client wishes. As a demonstration, you claimed that 86k is such a great deal. Yet, that's the price Ikea asks for a tiny apartment with an area of about 70mÂ. This represents a unit cost of about 1228â/mÂ, and this without accounting for the price of the property and any licenses and services which are needed to build it. Knowing this, do you actually know what's the average unit cost for building a similar house on a property, including the price of the property itself? Between 500â/m and 900â/mÂ.
In other words, your example costs at least twice as much to build than a regular house.
So, at least take your tinfoil hat off once in a while. The world isn't set out to get you.
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Take for Ikea homes. Yes Ikea sells homes, using this method. They are cheaper than any other home. Look at this Ikea home for 86 K, which includes everything in the inside as well.
That won't sell well in the US. People in America hear "prefab home" and they think "double-wide". And the form factor of that Ikea house doesn't help any: the thing even looks like a double-wide. Not to mention that most parts of the US are dealing with a large volume of foreclosures. Where I live, there are a lot of houses ch
Re:Just like their trains... (Score:4, Interesting)
Am I the only one feeling a bit uneasy about this thread? Some Chinese construction projects are underfunded and of poor quality, therefore all Chinese buildings are crap? Some Chinese products are rip-off of foreign products, therefore all Chinese tech is copied? All Chinamen talk funny therefore all Chinamen dumb?
That's not it at all... what's making people uneasy about this construction project is that we have a firm claiming they can do, in 90 days, what has traditionally taken many years. While I'm very willing to accept that they can find efficiencies in the process, it's a bit much.
Re:Just like their trains... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hi, Mainland Chinese person here.
I lived a decade of my life in China, and go back there every few years. The real problem is that human life in China is not valued. Nobody feels responsible if a building falls over. It's bad if it gets international attention, not that lives were destroyed. People cut corners, bribe officials, anything to maximize profit.
Re:Just like their trains... (Score:5, Interesting)
The real problem is that human life in China is not valued.
This is true, the company I am working with were looking at data centers in mainland China, and asking about the fire supression system, in particular how long people had to get out once the alarm goes off. The answer was "In the Western world, you value human life over data, here we value data over human life."
Re:Just like their trains... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Just like their trains... (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I the only one feeling a bit uneasy about this thread? Some Chinese construction projects are underfunded and of poor quality, therefore all Chinese buildings are crap? Some Chinese products are rip-off of foreign products, therefore all Chinese tech is copied? All Chinamen talk funny therefore all Chinamen dumb?
What concerns me is that an artificial deadline has been imposed for completing a very ambitious project. When a deadline is set, it creates, in many cases, a very strong tendency to meet the deadline, even if it means cutting corners. Combine that with a culture where face is very important and you have a potentially dangerous combination. Non of which is unique to China, universal for all of China; nor not prevalent in many other countries around the world.
Or, as we used to put it when building industrial sites - "We offer good, fast, and cheap options. Pick the two you want."
Re:Just like their trains... (Score:5, Funny)
All Chinamen talk funny therefore all Chinamen dumb?
What the fuck are you talking about? The chinaman is not the issue here, Dude. I'm talking about drawing a line in the sand, Dude. Across this line, you DO NOT... Also, Dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please.
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Would you feel safe in a building of that size that was slapped together in 90 days?
I know I wouldn't no matter who built it.
Re:Just like their trains... (Score:4, Insightful)
Beef up YOUR buildings! (Score:3, Funny)
P90X for architecture?
90 Days ? (Score:2)
Misleading headline is misleading.
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Only misleading part is that it will actually last only 9 days. China quality. Exploding toilets and support pillars stuffed with trash! ;)
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Hell, who needs to worry about the toilets-- how are you goin to let the foundations cure? I have seen "top-down" construction for a high rise, but you still have months of ground preparation to bore through the basement levels to solid rock. The math seems to check out though-- the unimaginitive design should be very efficient to build.
Would be interesting to watch though. Presumably they would lift two-story modules.
Jenga! (Score:4, Funny)
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Well if its anything like their bullet train, yea.
Re:Jenga! (Score:4, Funny)
Actually more like Tetris
Different pre-formed shapes appear on site and the trick is to slot them in place
Hopefully the bottom floors don't disappear as they are completed.
kinda cheating (Score:5, Insightful)
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Same as using libraries instead of writing everything from scratch is cheating right?
Re:kinda cheating (Score:4, Insightful)
No. In civil engineerimng they do something alien called "design" where they spend most of their time. Moving the steel beams around to find where it fits, during construction, is uniquely computer science.
Re:kinda cheating (Score:5, Funny)
That's because people who order a skyscraper to be built don't call those contracted to design and build it halfway through construction to tell them "Oh yeah, it needs to fly and also double as a ship and a subway station" (which is later clarified to "we need a helipad in the lobby" which itself is finally clarified three months after the deadline, what they meant was "we'd like to make sure there's a second entrance near the 14th street bus stop so employees don't have to walk around the building to get in". Of course, for this to be like software development after each of these change requests they would also demand that work immediately begin on converting the building to the new specs so that by the time it's finished it has wings sticking out from the 12th floor, the basement has a subway tunnel with a large propeller in it and the front desk is placed inside a large hangar).
Re:kinda cheating (Score:5, Insightful)
So what you're saying is, that people in construction know how to make proper contracts?
I've actually done software development for and with engineering companies, and the ones I've worked with had a very interesting view on deadlines - they'd rather things work before being put to use, to the point that they'd move the deadline.
Hell, I got my ass chewed off for working overtime to finish a project on time. My boss (an engineer by trade and education) had taken my project estimation and essentially tripled it before sending it to the client. He wasn't upset that my estimation was off, he was upset that I didn't have the balls to come up and say "hey, there's a problem with this, and I can't make it on time".
It's amazing to work with those kinds of people. The kind of people that will make it abundantly clear, that the client gets what they paid for, and what they paid for is in the specifications.
THAT is the biggest problem with IT. Everybody being to scared to say no. Write the specification with the client, get their signature on it. Do not deviate without renegotiating EVERYTHING, including payment and deadlines.
Re:kinda cheating (Score:5, Informative)
Civil engineers are also held legally responsible and liable if there's a problem, and it should never, ever, fail or fall down outside of extraordinary circumstances. Unlike software which warrants left and right that there is no warranty and if you're lucky you'll get a patch with a bug fix.
Or compare the licensing requirements:
Civil Engineering: get a degree, pass the Fundamentals of Engineering, optionally get another degree, work professionally for a number of years, apply to take the PE exam, take the 8-hour PE exam, if you're lucky enough to pass (most don't), you now have your Professional Engineering license in that state (only) and can sign/stamp documents and plans.
Software Engineering: n/a
Re:kinda cheating (Score:5, Funny)
Three engineers were arguing about God.
God is a mechanical engineer, says one (who is, of course, himself mechanical engineer). Just look at the muscles and bones. What symphony of precision, the seamless work of joints, bones, muscles, sinews. A beauty to behold!
No, no, says the other, God is an electrical/electronics engineer. Just look at the nervous system – the myriad feedback and forward loops, the firing of the neurons in the brainenough said.
Chaps, you are both wrong, says the third. God is a civil engineer. Only civil engineer would put a drainpipe in the middle of a recreational area
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It's funnier if you say "sewage outlet" instead of "drainpipe".
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Not to mention that in China if the building collapsed afterwards those responsible would most likely be shot.
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Software Engineering: n/a
The problem is that most states (and countries for that matter) aren't exactly in a rush to provide some sort of licensing process for software engineers either. IEEE has been working on a Principles and Practices Exam [ieee.org] but until the state boards actually update their procedures to recognize software engineers and mandate some sort of license for critical systems development it is unlikely to gain much traction.
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Re:kinda cheating (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll be watching it with interest but probably from a distance of 838+|x| meters.
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I say it depends on what those libraries, etc., are. I mean, what if we think of the prefab parts as analogous to the software that an open-source developer builds upon? Do we then say that the shiny new program took not just one Summer of Code but three decades starting from the day RMS established the Free Software Foundation?
BTW the collateral damage from a collapse is likely to be less than 838 m. Since the design is presumably modular rather than monolithic, shouldn't it fall more like childrens' bloc
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I say it depends on what those libraries, etc., are.
Exactly. If you boast that you created a web browser in a weekend, but all you did was make a WebKit wrapper (prefab big building elements), is a whole lot story if the your modules are something like "iostream" (nails, 2x4 planks...).
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BTW the collateral damage from a collapse is likely to be less than 838 m. Since the design is presumably modular rather than monolithic, shouldn't it fall more like childrens' blocks than like a wine bottle?
You are probably right, but as I will probably not be in China during the time of construction, the value of x will probably reduce the difference to a rounding error anyhow.
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No, but claiming "the programming was done in one week" when you are actually only compiling it and had 2 years in advance to write the libraries and the documentation. It's still a feat when you have to do all the debugging and testing, but not as impressive as the claim tries to make it sound like.
It's a mashup?
Re:kinda cheating (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:kinda cheating (Score:5, Funny)
Back in my day we smelted our own ore. And we liked it!
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Back in my day we started with just an anvil, four copper bars and some booze. And it was FUN!
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Where's the magma? There can be no fun without magma.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backyard_furnace [wikipedia.org]
China made a lot of high carbon pig iron that way.
Re:kinda cheating (Score:5, Insightful)
This how any high rise is build. It is definitely not cheating.
Re:kinda cheating (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it just me or should building skyscrapers not be a speed trial in any case?
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Of course, but there is still big difference in the size and complexity of the modules. You just have to decide where to draw the line and define what counts as "cheating" and what doesn't.
Ok, if you wanted to go hardcore, I guess you could have a definition where you are not allowed to bring two or more materials attached to each other to the construction site, no pre-treatment of materials (shortening, painting...) and something like that.
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Some good opportunities await (Score:3)
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 larg
Re:Some good opportunities await (Score:5, Interesting)
At a claimed cost of 628,000,000,000 and supposedly being able to house 100,000, it's a bargain too - only 6280 per person. Here in Aus, housing costs somewhere between 50,000 to about 100,000 per person for housing. (Roughly 100000 per bedroom room for a house, on average.)
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The cost of construction work, nowadays, is defined by labour wages, not the cost of building materials. Hence, obviously it is more expensive to build something in Australia, resorting to australian labour, than it is to build something in China, resorting to chinese labour.
And let's not even go into the issue of costs introduced by adhering to building and safety regulations.
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If you believe that nonsense then I have news for you: the entire construction industry has been "kinda cheating" for decades now. With steel structures, every single structural element is prefabricated somewhere and only assembled in situ. This is even the case with large projects, such as concrete bridges. Nowadays, there are a hand full of different building techniques which rely on the prefabrication of st
Like the Empire State Building (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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In Australia it would take more than 90 days just to get planning approval.
progress (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, from raising a 30 story building in 360 hours [slashdot.org] 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.
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Re:progress (Score:5, Insightful)
Of-course, China has much freer market than almost anybody else on the planet, all the businesses that are there, all the people, who moved their investment capital there, all the companies that produce there, you think they are there because China is communist? China is a communist like I am a ballerina.
Also, China to USA is what Germany is to Greece, except Greece cannot print money and USA can, but the rest of the relationship is the same, USA needs China much more than China needs USA. [slashdot.org] Here is one of debates on this [fora.tv], the people in the audience don't understand it and don't want to hear about it (no surprise, so many are Chinese expatriates)
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Also, China to USA is what Germany is to Greece, except Greece cannot print money and USA can, but the rest of the relationship is the same, USA needs China much more than China needs USA.
Actually, the two economies are intertwines theta both need each other. China needs a market for it's goods and a stable place to invest; the US likes cheap goods and the capital influx. While we have a large debt to China, sovereign debt is actually very fungible; even if the consequences of are severe. The US could, with a vote and stroke of the pen, wipe out or some all of its debt to China. Not likely, but it's not without precedent. Inflation could do the same. End the end, we really are prisoners of e
Foundations? (Score:2, Interesting)
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...
Re:Foundations? (Score:5, Interesting)
They pre-fab even the foundation. Seriously. You can see it in this video this video [cnngo.com] of them (BSB) erecting a 30-story hotel in 15 days.
I work with Chinese companies a lot, and... (Score:5, Interesting)
... 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.
Wrong questions (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wrong questions (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not a "cultural thing", they're just a bunch of cutthroat bloody liars who never take responsibility for or even admit to failure, and I'm middlingly sick of hearing it excused as "culture, man, you have to understand the culture". It's just plain old deception to keep the funding coming for another month.
IME, the only way to deal with it is to pay for fully QA'd, stamped and sealed results, not development. Apropos to this case, I'd pay for their magical tower in annual instalments after it was put up and stayed up.
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Oh great! (Score:4, Informative)
Skyscraper index [wikipedia.org] here we come again!
I don't doubt that they can build a tower (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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you assume the Chineese give a shit that people will die.
There isn't good evidence for that assumption, IMHO.
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Shema Yisrael! (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
translation question (Score:4, Funny)
Soil? (Score:4, Informative)
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We'll in the Netherlands you are on reclaimed land where the soil is soft. Where they plan to build this building there may be bedrock underneath such as in New York City but with that being said, I doubt any structure over 1000 feet can be built in 90 days at all as either way the foundation alone would probably take more time than this.
It sounds like a 3 year project minimum.
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There just playing loose with the term "building", what they should say is "erected"
This is not uncommon, see the "Liberty" ships built during WW II , the "record" is like 36 hours, BUT 80% of the ship was pre-built and they just it put together.
they said the same thing about the train station (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:2)
Yeah, 'cos that's just the sort of thing you want to do as absolutely fast as possible.
Access to the site & some basic math (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
In a related story... (Score:4, Funny)
large high speed rail system is crumbling (Score:3)
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That's one way to solve the overpopulation I guess...
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Yeah, because "Sky" for buildings is such a unique and non-generic name.
And unless they own the trademark in China too, it's doubtful they could even TRY to do anything about it.
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That's what building is, though. You simply have to create a broader definition of what a component is. You don't count the time it costs to create a brick when you just build a house, right ?
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Unless you bake your own bricks and smelt your own girders then all building is cheating, right?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
iPhones and iPads are made in China. So is the machine your reading this on and probably quite a bit of the stuff around your house.