I read a couple of specialized news blogs written mostly by people out of Hong Kong about things going on in China. It's pretty amazing story involving 1/6th of humanity.
Here's some good blogs if you want to follow along:
There are many others. A good movie to watch is "Manufactured Landscapes" if you want to see the dark side of all this.
Also, "Dwelling Narrowness" is a good mainland Chinese drama. Some versions on the Internet are available with fan contributed English subtitles. It does a pretty good job IMHO of talking about a lot of the apolitical transformations that are going on in Chinese society.
It's quite a coincidence that you both mention Manufactured Landscapes and I happen to be currently watching it on Sundance. I'm a fan of Burtynsky but had never heard of the movie before. Synchronicity.
I agree that Manufacture Landscapes is an incredibly fascinating documentary, I recommend it to anyone interested in seeing where their consumer goods come from and inevitably end up. And thanks for the links! I'm currently checking them out.
Forget about the time to complete. The real advancement here is the use of insulation!!! Most Shanghai structures are poured concrete with zero insulation. Cool video.
This should have took considerable time for designing and manufacturing the modular parts taking into account not only the final state of the building but also hundreds of construction stages. The parts should have been manufactured and factory assembled with extreme detailing and with very low tolerances so that the final on-site assembly required as little work as possible. Also, the logistics should have been planned with excruciating detail and with more workers and site equipment than normally required. I think the total time from design to construction took many months or even more than a year and it cost more than conventional construction. Not that I mean to undermine the effort; this is a marvelous feat of engineering and logistics.
Not entirely sure why they've got into building, but they emphasise the sustainability of their construction technique. The owner likes to show off going by his private jet, the fact he built a palace in the style of Versailles, and the 130 foot pyramid on the company campus, picture in the impressive article below.
Maybe thats the most efficient amount without getting in each others way, the faster they complete this structure the faster they can move to the next. I'd assume over there they don't have many problems staffing a 24/7 worksite.
I like how they worked straight through the night. In fact, they work around the clock on many infrastructure projects, including roads. It shows that they want to get things done fast.
I wish they would do that in America more often. Wouldn't things get built faster and employ more people if they worked around the clock?
Click through to YouTube for the explanation in the notes - they don't work through the night:
"to explain the video in detail: 48 hours of construction time is the accrued time of construction. workers rest after 10pm everyday. As you may see on the left corner the clicker registers 46 hours as time to finish the main structural components, and another 90 hours to finish the building enclosure. For a building of this size a conventional approach would take anywhere from 3 months to anything goes."
When I was in Shanghai, there was construction work near my hotel in Pudong that seemed to go all night. It was maybe fewer workers than during the day, but you could see that there was welding going on any time you cared to look.
That's really the case in all of South-East Asia. I lived in Singapore for two years where you'd see a full crew on all major construction projects throughout the night. The only time that was really "off" was Sunday night, and even then there were skeleton crews working on this and that. Same was true most everywhere I traveled: Malaysia, Indo, HK, etc.
I miss that in Europe too. I guess unions & high labor cost are to blame. At least in the US you can go shopping on sunday while in most of Western Europe everything is closed. When I come back from Asia I'm always amazed at what a lazy bunch of bums we have become.
Neither of the things you mention are caused by labor costs.
European stores are closed on Sundays because the law requires them to be. It's a measure to allow mom & pop stores to compete against the WalMarts of the world while maintaining quality of life.
Construction happens during the day because people in western countries value silence, and therefore the laws are written to prevent noisy things happening during the hours that normal people are asleep. Road construction at night seems like a great idea, until it happens on the road in front of your house.
Not sure about the Europe, but most of the construction done in the US is not unionized. The specialty areas certainly are (electricians, pipe-fitting, etc.) But the structure and foundation is straight-up grunt work.
And, as told to me by a friend, half the people on the site are inspectors. You've got the guy digging the hole, you've got the county inspector, you've got an OSHA inspector, and possibly an EPA inspector and union rep. That's a lot of people to doing nothing while the guy digs that hole.
It's probably an exaggeration (we were talking at the bar) but all exaggerations are based on a bit of truth.
And with all the reports of buildings toppling in China during the last few years I'd prefer the job be done right than done fast.
I used to think that shopping on a Sunday was a "Good Thing" until I lived somewhere where I can't. Almost all shops are closed on a Sunday. If you need food there are a few supermarkets open.
What I found that after a few months of adjustment, the shops being closed on a Sunday was a good thing - people don't automatically gravitate to shopping. They do other, more relaxed stuff, like meeting friends or relaxing. It's a bizarre case of less choice is good.
It is now. A lot of the buildings going up in Dubai were assembled elsewhere and shipped in. I was watching Discovery Channel and they had the elevator shaft, bathrooms, and staircase in prebuilt modules. then they just stacked them up like Legos.
this is totally WRONG - it's 1000km away. It's like saying "Microsoft is headquartered in San Francisco" to make Seattle easily place-able in the mind of the reader.
no my point is that the author most likely got the wrong information than having done it on purpose. I can understand a person not being fluent in a foreign language, but I can't understand a person misrepresenting a distance of 1000km on purpose.
Most likely it was just bad editing/bad writing - and it's unconscionable to explain it away as "on purpose".
And by the way, the original article now has the corrected location: Changsha
Actually, more like "shell assembled in 6 days". To build it they needed to first prepare the foundation which can take several weeks prior just to get it solid and firm enough to support such a structure. While that is happening they need to be crafting the panels and components in a factory. Then they can bring it to the site and start assembling. With enough labour on site it can be done. Pre-fab is far more advanced in Asia than here and in places like Japan a house can be assembled and ready to move in within 3 days (fully finished). Toyota builds AWESOME steel frame homes that are earthquake resistant and insulated for sound and energy efficiency. Still, the land has to be prepped first and that takes the most time (no good to have an earthquake proof structure on a poor/soft/shifting foundation).
Now... what we need to see is what that hotel looks like in 5/10/15 years (doubtful it was built for a lifespan beyond 25 years as most prefabs are built with short life expectancy and planned replacement).
Here's some good blogs if you want to follow along:
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/weblog.htm
http://www.chinahush.com/
http://www.danwei.org/
There are many others. A good movie to watch is "Manufactured Landscapes" if you want to see the dark side of all this.
Also, "Dwelling Narrowness" is a good mainland Chinese drama. Some versions on the Internet are available with fan contributed English subtitles. It does a pretty good job IMHO of talking about a lot of the apolitical transformations that are going on in Chinese society.