Aerial view of Sky City in Changsha (China)

Sky City | world’s tallest building

Developers of what will be the world’s tallest building, the Broad Group has already had success with the prefab skyscraper method with their 15 storey 9 building in Shanghai, which was delivered and assembled the 30 storey hotel structure in a mere 15 days. However the subdivision of the Chinese developer made waves when they announced that they aimed to construct the tallest building in the world, Sky City within 90 days. While the project was set to top out this March 2013, the human-based developer Broad Group announced that the total construction time will be 7 months.

Nature landscape around Sky City

The aptly named ‘Sky City‘ will reportedly break ground next month. The extreme productivity is mainly due to a system of modules and prefabricated parts combined with a back-breaking timeline. Located in just outside Changsha, the rapidly developing waterfront area that will soon house a Zaha Hadid Theater Complex, the mixed use residential complex will house 31,000 people inside. Approximately 83% of the vertical complex will be exclusively residential, while 3% will be reserved for office use. A hotel with a thousand person capacity and a school set to educate 4600 children is also planned for the veritable urban complex. Broad developers and Broad sustainable development express and act on a serious concern for sustainable building technologies and CO2 emission reduction, touting many manifestos about green lifestyle tips and techniques. Mechanisms to protect against solar gain and a network of green roofs express a commitment to the green cause, irrespective of scale.

Rooftop gardens of Sky City

The 220 storey is set to top out at a height of 838 meters and cost a relative small sum of 628 million USD; a fraction of the cost of the current tallest building in the world, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. The mega structure cost about 1.5 billion USD and was built in an already extraordinarily fast five years. Sky city‘s statistics are particularly remarkable because the project aims to posit a solution to a larger goal of extreme urbanization and population growth both cheaply and with regard to environmental concerns. The site selection alone proposes a long-term metropolitan spread, with the assumption that Changsha’s urban trajectory will engulf the mega structure. Perhaps 200,000 tons of prefabricated steel components will result in a resolution to long-standing problems in urban development and alter the profession and priorities in architecture at large.

more. www.broad.com