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19 days to build a 57-storey tower

bbc.co.uk

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Re: 19 days to build a 57-storey tower

#41

Post by brudgers »

pharke wrote: post #39

The description of these buildings reminds me of the 'lifeboat city' eco-doom-meme that was floating around for a while seemingly inspired by Lovelock's idea of 'lifeboat islands' or geographic areas that will weather the coming catastrophe well enough to continue supporting a sustainable society. While I don't agree with really any of the above doomsaying or wild speculation I am somewhat fond of the idea of packing…

Pruit-Igoe is the poster child for the theory of apartment towers in the park meets reality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt%E2%80%93Igoe

Re: 19 days to build a 57-storey tower

#42

Post by nkoren »

mianos wrote: post #15

The Soviets built these type of buildings at the same speed in the 60s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panel%C3%A1k Amazing, doing it higher than 20 floors though.

I am unfamiliar with the paneláky, but I would be surprised if they were built at a comparable speed. While I am aware of large building shells which have been constructed on this sort of timescale, they still required many months/years of fit-out afterwards (plumbing, electricity, fine interior finishing). what is unique about what Broad Group is doing is that they are assembling fully fitted-out modules, which are essentially ready for move-in the day after construction is complete. The only historical analogues I'm aware of are things like Moshe Safde's Habitat 67[1] and some Japanese "metabolist" buildings.[2] But those have been architectural experiments without any real financial viability. What Broad Group is doing is unique in that they are making it commercially viable at scale.

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_67

2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolism_%28architecture%29

Re: 19 days to build a 57-storey tower

#43

Post by ido »

kayoone wrote: post #32
zhte415 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's more, but a small personal anecdote: I have a boss with similar, if somewhat more relaxed, thinking. "Why stay in the Shangri-La when a [200 Yuan per night] Motel 168 or HomeInn is perfectly clean, safe and more convenient." or "Have a laptop and a standing desk if you like, it saves more than having you unhappy or leave." or "50 Yuan per day travel bonus, enjoy the local food." It is not penny pinching (the…

Great quotes, the "only one child" quote is only meant for certain countries i guess. In Germany we have a problem with the population growing older and older because young people get less and less kids. That taxes the health care system and skews politics towards the old among other things.

Fortunately Germany has high net migration, and the world's population is not shrinking.

Re: 19 days to build a 57-storey tower

#44

Post by puranjay »

CrLf wrote: post #9

For some reason I don't feel compelled to spend time in such a building...

I live in India and had a maid who was incredibly quick to clean the house. She would come in, do her thing and be out in 15 minutes.

For other maids, the same cleaning up would take at least an hour.

I was convinced she wasn't doing a good job. All past experience with other maids had shown me that it takes at least one hour to clean the house.

One day, I decided to follow up after she'd done her cleaning. I went over every thing she'd cleaned and checked them for any dirt or grime.

Nothing.

So I decided to follow her as she cleaned. I trailed her like a ghost, carefully noting her every move.

She was cleaning everything very thoroughly. She did not leave a single stone unturned.

My suspicions were only because everyone else was being inefficient.

Lesson learned: don't mistake inefficiency for quality.

Re: 19 days to build a 57-storey tower

#45

Post by smackfu »

zimpenfish wrote: post #11

19 days to -assemble- a 57 storey tower. Four and a half months constructing the modules for assembly. > Broad Sustainable Building spent four and a half months fabricating the building’s 2,736 modules before construction began. The first 20 floors were completed last year, and the remaining 37 were built from 31 January to 17 February this year, Xiao said. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/30/chinese-constru…

Also don't see much about foundations. It usually takes a long time for a building to get out of the ground, and I don't see how this technique helps the speed of that.

Re: 19 days to build a 57-storey tower

#46

Post by melling »

The new World Trade Center took 8 years and is the most expensive building in the world:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/may/11/one-world...

Everything done is the U.S. takes more time and costs a lot more money.

Consider, for example, that China has constructed 10,000 miles of high-speed rail in about a decade. We still have 0.0 miles. Yeah, yeah, we don't need 10k but we need more than 0.

Airports, subways, cities, and I imagine roads are being constructed at an incredible pace. This Bill Gates blog gets the point across: http://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Concrete-in-China

This is all good for China but the U.S. looks like it will quickly be passed as the largest economy. That may have some repercussions.

Re: 19 days to build a 57-storey tower

#47

Post by nols »

smackfu wrote: post #45
zimpenfish wrote: post #11

19 days to -assemble- a 57 storey tower. Four and a half months constructing the modules for assembly. > Broad Sustainable Building spent four and a half months fabricating the building’s 2,736 modules before construction began. The first 20 floors were completed last year, and the remaining 37 were built from 31 January to 17 February this year, Xiao said. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/30/chinese-constru…

Also don't see much about foundations. It usually takes a long time for a building to get out of the ground, and I don't see how this technique helps the speed of that.

It doesn't speed up foundations, but being able to work on the prefab modules while another team is working on the foundations certainly speeds things up.

Re: 19 days to build a 57-storey tower

#49

Post by SanFranManDan »

melling wrote: post #46

The new World Trade Center took 8 years and is the most expensive building in the world: http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/may/11/one-world... Everything done is the U.S. takes more time and costs a lot more money. Consider, for example, that China has constructed 10,000 miles of high-speed rail in about a decade. We still have 0.0 miles. Yeah, yeah, we don't need 10k but we need more than 0. Airports, subw…

Im not saying that this particular tower is unsafe, but in the US we have loads of regulation. Depending on your political view, this can mean either the US is helping to protect citizens or it means that it gets in the way of business/progress.

Having some regulation in place helps prevent things like: http://i.imgur.com/McgeoNa.jpg

But that doesn't mean that US isn't over regulated.

Re: 19 days to build a 57-storey tower

#50

Post by smcl »

mianos wrote: post #37
smcl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mind them so much tbh. It's pretty surprising how similar they can be though, I saw that picture and thought "that looks like my girlfriend's parent's place in Prievidza"

They all look similar because they are all constructed from the same pre-fabricated panels, like this Chinese building. The interesting thing to me is seeing the slow change of the designs over time. In Puchov they have about four series of designs. Fifty buildings but all one of the four basic designs.

BTW - unrelated but are you aware of any nearby HN-style meetups (Vienna, Brno, Bratislava, Budapest)?
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