May 31, 2013

SKY CITY - Truly Vertical Living

Believe it or not, this month the construction for the first sky city in the world should start in the Hunan province, China - to be precise in its capital city Changsha!

This is an extremely massive project in the history of skyscraper construction:
it will not only be the officially first sky city building, but also the new TBW, with a total height of 838 m and 220 floors - it is said that the original plan was to build a 666 m tall skyscraper, but the local government wanted to go for the TBW, surpassing Burj Khalifa's 828 meters.
It will belong to the sustainable buildings (setting a mark in China), it shall be built in only 90 days (!) *, it will comprise hotels, multiple schools, a hospital, gardens, ... you name it ...., and over 100 high-speed elevators.

At the same time there have been many doubts regarding several points including safety standards, time to finish, and even if it might be only a marketing ploy of the builders, the Broad Group.

However, China has announced a multitude of astonishing high rise projects, including a 2 km tall super skyscraper - lets stay tuned on that one!



* this is possible through prefabricating 95% of the building before any single excavation starts on the construction site. Just remember that Burj Khalifa's construction took more than 5 years (21 Sep 2004 - 1 Oct 2009, officially opened 4 Jan 2010). The goal is to achieve costs of $1'500/m2 - compared to Burj Khalifa's $4'500/m2.