[DougLikesBMW]

...and they rested on the 7th.

America is being left in the dust.

Disregard Mexicans, acquire Chinese.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot...-just-six-days

As the United States and China battle over the finer points of currency manipulation at the G-20 summit, American negotiators may want to take note of this startling testimonial to the productivity of Chinese workers: A construction crew in the south-central Chinese city of Changsha has completed a 15-story hotel in just six days. If nothing else, this remarkable achievement will stoke further complaints from American economic pundits that China's economy is far more accomplished than ours in tending to such basics as construction.

[Related: China sets record with new supercomputer]

Meanwhile, it's easy to imagine the disorientation of Changsha residents who'd gone away, or who just hadn't recently ventured into the downtown neighborhood of the new Ark Hotel: "Honey, I don't remember a hotel there, do you?"

The work crew erected the hotel -- a soundproofed, thermal-insulated structure reportedly built to withstand a magnitude 9 earthquake -- with all prefabricated materials. In other words, a crew of off-site factory workers built the sections, and their on-site counterparts arranged them on the foundation for the Ark project.

[Video: How safe is a home built in a week?]

Despite the frenetic pace of construction, no workers were injured -- and thanks to the prefab nature of the process, the builders wasted very few construction materials. Below is a time-lapse video that shows the hotel being built from the ground up in less than a week:

[aretardedorange]

I wonder how safe that thing is......

[MCMLXXXIX]

looks like LEGOs. thats incredible

[Seminole]

Since it was pre-fab it's not really that much of a surprise. If all the pieces were already assembled and people worked around the clock the same thing could be accomplished here. And not to nit-pick or anything, but when they stop the time lapse video, the whole bottom half of the building and the top part doesn't have windows installed yet. I'd also be curious to know if that 6 days was just the exterior shell or included all the interior walls, pluming, wiring, etc.

To me some of the stuff they did during WW2, like building a entire Liberty ship from keel to completion in less than 5 days (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Robert_E._Peary), still outdoes something like this. They didn't have anywhere near the technology that we have today.

[KingOfJericho]

If you put a 1000 piece puzzle together into several sections of 50 pieces in one room over an 8 hour period then move them to another room and put the now-20 pieces together in 5 minutes, did you solve a puzzle in 5 minutes?


EDIT: Seminole beat me to it...

[DougLikesBMW]

Originally Posted by Seminole

Since it was pre-fab it's not really that much of a surprise. If all the pieces were already assembled and people worked around the clock the same thing could be accomplished here. And not to nit-pick or anything, but when they stop the time lapse video, the whole bottom half of the building and the top part doesn't have windows installed yet. I'd also be curious to know if that 6 days was just the exterior shell or included all the interior walls, pluming, wiring, etc.

To me some of the stuff they did during WW2, like building a entire Liberty ship from keel to completion in less than 5 days (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Robert_E._Peary), still outdoes something like this. They didn't have anywhere near the technology that we have today.

True enough, but still pretty crazy imo.

[Seminole]

Originally Posted by DougLikesBMW

True enough, but still pretty crazy imo.

Definitely. I think it was more of a publicity stunt, but it was still neat.

[Kroy]

somehow i doubt this building will stand a 9.0 earthquake. still amazing.

[solefald]

yes, them Chinese builders are known for their quality work.

[Kroy]

DAMN! neighboring buildings were SOOO lucky to escape unscathed.

[CollinsE90]

I wonder how much rice was shipped in for the build

[DougLikesBMW]

Originally Posted by solefald

yes, them Chinese builders are known for their quality work.

[u2b]75ng-6_c-jo[u2b]

Lotus Riverside development in Shangai June 27, 2009. Basically what happened was the developer ignored repeated warnings from project supervisors.

The South China Morning Post noted that the pilings used in the Lotus Riverside development, made of prestressed, precast concrete piles, are outlawed in Hong Kong because they aren’t strong enough to support the kind of ultra-high buildings that are common in Hong Kong. But in mainland China, they are often used because buildings there are typically much shorter.
Since then developers are much more closely watched and materials re-evaluated.

[JayKay335i]

It turns out the hotel was actually a cheap imitation of another hotel, and collapsed 18 days later.

[Tondtar]

Let's see how many days it takes for them to fill it up with paying guests.