In early December, Liu Zhangning was tending her cabbage patch when she saw a tall yellow construction crane in the distance. At night, the work lights made it seem like day.
Fifteen days later, a 30-story hotel towered over her village on the outskirts of the city like a glass and steel obelisk.
"I couldn't really believe it," Liu said. "They built that thing in under a month."
A time-lapse video of the project in Changsha, which shows the prefabricated building being assembled on site, has racked up more than 5 million views on YouTube and left Western architects speechless.
"I've never seen a project go up this fast," said Ryan Smith, an expert on prefabricated architecture at the University of Utah.
In other countries, the most advanced prefab construction methods can reduce building times by a third to half, Smith said. The builders of the Changsha hotel did better, knocking one-half to two-thirds off the normal schedule.
"It's unfathomable," Smith said.
The warp-speed construction is a startling illustration of the building boom in China, where an exodus from the countryside to the cities has swelled the urban population by almost 400 million since 1990.
Click here to read more and to view a time lapse video of the construction. BD+C
Related Stories
| Sep 22, 2010
Satellier, Potential + Semac close investment deal
Satellier, a world leader in providing CAD and Building Information Modeling (BIM) outsourced services to the architecture, engineering and construction industry, announces a strategic minority investment from India-based top engineering firm Potential + Semac, ushering in the next evolution of the global architecture support industry.
| Sep 21, 2010
New BOMA-Kingsley Report Shows Compression in Utilities and Total Operating Expenses
A new report from the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) International and Kingsley Associates shows that property professionals are trimming building operating expenses to stay competitive in today’s challenging marketplace. The report, which analyzes data from BOMA International’s 2010 Experience Exchange Report® (EER), revealed a $0.09 (1.1 percent) decrease in total operating expenses for U.S. private-sector buildings during 2009.
| Sep 21, 2010
Forecast: Existing buildings to earn 50% of green building certifications
A new report from Pike Research forecasts that by 2020, nearly half the green building certifications will be for existing buildings—accounting for 25 billion sf. The study, “Green Building Certification Programs,” analyzed current market and regulatory conditions related to green building certification programs, and found that green building remain robust during the recession and that certifications for existing buildings are an increasing area of focus.
| Sep 21, 2010
Middough Inc. Celebrates its 60th Anniversary
Middough Inc., a top ranking U.S. architectural, engineering and management services company, announces the celebration of its 60th anniversary, says President and CEO, Ronald R. Ledin, PE.
| Sep 16, 2010
Gehry’s Santa Monica Place gets a wave of changes
Omniplan, in association with Jerde Partnership, created an updated design for Santa Monica Place, a shopping mall designed by Frank Gehry in 1980.
| Sep 16, 2010
Green recreation/wellness center targets physical, environmental health
The 151,000-sf recreation and wellness center at California State University’s Sacramento campus, called the WELL (for “wellness, education, leisure, lifestyle”), has a fitness center, café, indoor track, gymnasium, racquetball courts, educational and counseling space, the largest rock climbing wall in the CSU system.
| Sep 13, 2010
Community college police, parking structure targets LEED Platinum
The San Diego Community College District's $1.555 billion construction program continues with groundbreaking for a 6,000-sf police substation and an 828-space, four-story parking structure at San Diego Miramar College.
| Sep 13, 2010
Campus housing fosters community connection
A 600,000-sf complex on the University of Washington's Seattle campus will include four residence halls for 1,650 students and a 100-seat cafe, 8,000-sf grocery store, and conference center with 200-seat auditorium for both student and community use.