19 days to build a 57-storey tower • Hacker News Board

Re: 19 days to build a 57-storey tower

#91

Post by eastbayjake » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 5:26 PM UTC

nate_meurer wrote: post #88

donkeyd wrote: post #10

> “The biggest problem we face in the world right now isn't terrorism or world war. It's climate change,” he says. I really like seeing this quote from a Chinese business man.

Yes this Zhang Yue guy is my new hero. Talking about his new building, > "It has huge benefits for future generations. If you tear it down 500 years from now it will leave a steel skeleton which is a resource for them, not just a load of rubbish. That’s what this is about." I can't express how grateful and refreshed I am to hear a builder say such a thing. Especially coming as I am from the U.S., where we seem to spe…

> There may be a bit of light appearing at the end of the American tunnel ... Hope this catches on

I hope it catches on in San Francisco and Oakland. There was a previous HN thread about B2 (can anyone find it?) and the potential to quickly add thousands of units at a higher density than currently exists would have enormous environmental, humanitarian, and economic benefits for the entire region.

Re: 19 days to build a 57-storey tower

#92

Post by drzaiusapelord » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 5:36 PM UTC

anthony_romeo wrote: post #69

mikeash wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the DC area and frequently visit Beijing. The DC Metro is currently building the Silver Line, an extension out to Dulles airport and a bit beyond. The first segment of the extension, with five stations, was completed last year after five years of construction. The remainder is planned to be complete in 2019 or 2020... assuming there aren't any more delays. In a similar amount of time, the Beijing subway wen…

I visited China for the first time last year. I went to Guangzhou with a friend of mine. My friend from there left to study in the US in 2010, and he could barely recognize his own city with all the new districts and buildings. I ultimately came to the conclusion that the growth in China is real, unlike how it's routinely described in the news in the US. Though I did meet an Irish business owner (who lived there for…

>social programs created with the 1930's and 1960's in mind

Its these social programs that help cushion the fall during a recession. Countries without them often are the receiving end of a peasant revolution or coup when the economy goes sour. I'd say this is very much a feature, not a bug. Meanwhile, China's affluence doesn't percolate to the rural area and a serious economic downturn would hurt the most vulnerable, which in autocratic states are poor children and the elderly.

>In one study of 1,800 infants in rural Shaanxi province in China’s north-west, 49% were anaemic and 40% were significantly hampered in developing either cognitive or motor skills.

>About one in three Chinese elderly report having poor health, and nearly one in four have consumption levels below the poverty line

I don't mind my tax dollars feeding poor children in rural USA, supporting seniors, etc. These programs made sense in 1930, 1960, today, and in the future.

Re: 19 days to build a 57-storey tower

#93

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 5:38 PM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #35

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…

Normally the time it takes to turn clay into brick or timber into lumber is not considered as part of the time of construction. The first order consideration is typically time on site because that's where the owner begins to have liability related to construction activity. By analogy we as outsiders don't count dressing in the dressing room against the 90 minutes of a futbol match despite the Laws of the Game requiri…

[deleted]

Re: 19 days to build a 57-storey tower

#94

Post by Symmetry » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 5:43 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #12

Early on in the article I wondered about how steel was going to be CO2-efficient, given the amount of coal involved in its production; but then I see it's as a replacement for concrete, which is much worse.

Yeah, but in general any skyscraper will end up being a relatively CO2-efficient way to house people. The heating/cooling savings of the shared all are huge and then there's the shorter transport distances for denser development.

Re: 19 days to build a 57-storey tower

#95

Post by schnaars » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 5:50 PM UTC

Amazing story, but reminds me of the buildings in Manna by Marshall Brain.

Re: 19 days to build a 57-storey tower

#96

Post by xtrumanx » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 5:57 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #80

innguest wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original WTC towers were already over-engineered. They could not be brought down by a plane hitting them, just like previously a plane hit the Empire State Building and it also did not collapse. That's why they needed the planes plus [redacted] in order to bring the towers down.

You've got the right mindset, but your conspiracy is backwards. The plane that hit the Empire State Building DID cause it to collapse, but the leaders of the media, academia, and construction industries formed a conspiracy to quickly rebuild it and pretend it never happened. Edit: In case it's not obvious, they did this because they knew skyscrapers would be essential to the future growth of New York, and they did no…

Damn, I'm usually a humorless person when it comes to comments trying to be funny at HN but this, this was good.

Re: 19 days to build a 57-storey tower

#97

Post by aries1980 » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 5:57 PM UTC

innguest wrote: post #72

aries1980 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, but I feel the renaissance of the 'Learn xyz in 24hrs' books in the form of 'Check how Joe Bloggs made xyz in 3 weeks' articles.

So you judge a field by the sophists that come to exploit it?

The commenter above stated we have better quality in IT and that is the only thing that I reflected on.

Re: 19 days to build a 57-storey tower

#98

Post by ticviking » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 7:01 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #71

mikeash wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the DC area and frequently visit Beijing. The DC Metro is currently building the Silver Line, an extension out to Dulles airport and a bit beyond. The first segment of the extension, with five stations, was completed last year after five years of construction. The remainder is planned to be complete in 2019 or 2020... assuming there aren't any more delays. In a similar amount of time, the Beijing subway wen…

What slows down development in the U.S. is accommodating competing interests in a democratic society. My parents, who live in the area, were among the people who strongly opposed the overland route and wanted a tunnel through Tysons, which would have cost another billion dollars and jeopardized federal funding. That tunnel fight took up a lot of time. There are environmentalists who care a lot more about the impact o…

> I'm a pro-development kind of guy, but the Chinese model of unelected technocrats dictating what gets built isn't the right answer. We should be looking to Western Europe, where development like public transit gets done because there is widespread public support to push things through the democratic process.

Except in our history the major projects that got built were built in exactly this way. Robert Moses[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses] is perhaps the most famous example of this, but we've had many others. The technocrats get either a public official, or a private multi-billionaire and make their vision happen, and damn the consequences.

I'm not familiar with the history of urban development in Europe, but I would not be surprised to see similar figures behind the first few systems before the benefits were obvious to everyone else.

Democracy is really good at forcing the system to take, or pretend to take, competing needs into account, but end of the day in basically every system "he who has the gold makes the rules".

Re: 19 days to build a 57-storey tower

#99

Post by melling » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 7:02 PM UTC

jonknee wrote: post #52

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…

And yet we can go outside and safely breathe. Some things are priceless.

That's not actually true. We still have bad days in some cities. The air quality in the U.S. is better but we still have room for improvement.

http://www.gothamgazette.com/index.php/government/5111-while...

Re: 19 days to build a 57-storey tower

#100

Post by lifeformed » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 7:13 PM UTC

Pretty cool but I hope they don't overlook the importance of aesthetics. It's worth spending extra time and money to make a building look unique and fitting for the location it is in. A city filled with identical mass-produced skyscrapers will not be pleasant once the novelty wears off.