Chinese firm erects 57-storey tower in 19 days

Broad Sustainable Building, a Chinese construction company has pulled of a modern day construction miracle of sorts by erecting a 57-storeyd skyscraper in just 19 days in central China.

Staking claim to being the 'world's fastest builder', the prefab construction firm, put up the rectangular, glass and steel Mini Sky City in the Hunan provincial capital of Changsha using a modular method which allowed it to assemble three floors day, revealed the company's vice president, Xiao Changgeng.

The company 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.

The company had honed its technology to speed up its construction from two floors to three floors a day. “This is definitely the fastest speed in our industry,” said Xiao.

Despite being interrupted by bad weather, work on the project proceeded at breakneck speed, with the modular method allowing for a much faster rate of construction.

Acknowledging this the company's engineer on the project, Chen Xiangqian added that while the traditional method followed the time consuming brick-by-brick technique, the modular way just required the assembly of the blocks.

The modular method of building high-rises has been used with some success many times before including the US and UK, however critics of the method warn that an over dependence on the technique could lead to cityscape with an overly uniform architecture.

However according to Liu Peng, associate director of the engineering consulting firm Arup Beijing stressed that the technique was worth developing not just because it ensured a faster rate of construction but also because it could be further developed into a safe and reliable method for building skyscrapers in a shorter timeframe.

Its only drawback according to Peng was the fact that it did not support all kinds of personalized demands at a time when customers wanted personalized architecture.

Mini Sky City which has already attracted many admirers ever since its construction video was uploaded on many social media sites, boasts of 19 atriums, 800 apartments and ample office space for approx 4,000 people. The structure is said to be completely safe and can withstand earthquakes. Sale of space in the building begins from later this month.

The company is now mulling over plans to erect the world's tallest skyscraper, at 220 floors, in only three months and is said to be awaiting the approvals for the project, called Sky City, which will also be in Changsha.