Editor’s note: This article was first published in June 2013, and reports news from that month, saying construction of the world’s tallest skyscraper could start early the following month. As far as is publicly known, Sky City One was halted soon afterwards and never built.
Ever since a Chinese construction company announced last year its intention to build the world’s tallest building in just 90 days, many people have used the word impossible. Yet for a well-known Los Angeles architect, Stan Klemanowicz, building the 838-metre tower, which is to be called Sky City One, is entirely possible, and the idea will probably end up revolutionising the architecture and construction sector. Construction of the skyscraper could begin early next month in the city of Changsha, in south-central China.
Stan Klemanowicz believes that the current construction model is outdated, because it is far too slow, and that this even drives up the cost of the projects themselves. It has already been shown how a 15-storey hotel can be built in just six days using prefabrication and assembly-line work. In other words, bringing many of the structures and materials already prepared, fitting them together and operating on site like any assembly line. The video shows how the hotel was built in six days by a workforce of 200 builders working in three shifts, without a single workplace accident.
Watch: A 15-storey hotel built in six days
According to Klemanowicz, Sky City One will show the standardisation of components and elements, components made as large as possible, and fittings and assembly that are organised and well synchronised on site. What we will see, he says, has never been seen before.
He believes that construction is one of the slowest and least modernised industries. We still lay bricks one by one and install sheets of plasterboard individually on site. Why can’t practically all building components be manufactured and assembled off site, so that they only need to be fitted together?
Although many sceptics say it can’t be done, it’s clear that they’re at least going to try, and if they succeed in this feat, the construction industry will start to think differently.
