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19 days,built a 57-storey buildings in China,Anti-seismic level 9

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I've seen a video of this somewhere.

It looks pretty awesome. I'm quick to talk shit about China quality, but they are on to something there.

I worked in the DC area and they are always constructing buildings. In general you can the whole process as the building goes up. They have to dig a huge hole, put in pylons and every single steel structure is welded, then concrete is applied. It's built from scratch onsite.

This design they are indicating in the video is very MODULAR. Floors and walls are built in a factory and the walls/floors have all of the wiring/duct/conduit. You can see less equipment onsite. Also quicker construction and they can add/remove floors in the future. Kind of Ikea style construction.
 
So if tons of pre-fab work was done off-site, than that counts towards the construction time. Therefore NOT 19 days. Maybe 19 days on site, but MANY more in total construction time.
 
Homerboy said:
So if tons of pre-fab work was done off-site, than that counts towards the construction time. Therefore NOT 19 days. Maybe 19 days on site, but MANY more in total construction time.
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But, how many of those units can the factory churn out in a day? Maybe it only takes a couple of days to get a bit of a lead, then the factory can just about keep up?
 
Chinese manufacturing aside, I do think we're going to see more modularization going forward. It will often be cheaper to manufacture and assemble portions of a project off-site.
 
Makes sense.

Kit houses and tract housing are not new.

Most large seagoing cargo ships are built in pre-fabbed sections.

I'll take "Non-ironic use of the word synergy" for $200, Alex.
 
dud said:
So who's going to volunteer to work or even live in this thing? Even for free? Come on ... any takers?
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Hey now!

China has improved a great deal since these days:

ladder_holding.jpg
 
The value of modularized construction of buildings in the US is dubious. Splitting the same amount of work into various locations, and bringing it all back together in the end, doesn't accomplish much when so many of the materials and methods have already been standardized for years.

It's not a new idea or difficult to do. The fact that it isn't widespread pretty much tells the whole story.
 
DrPizza said:
Perhaps we in the U.S. might want to stop and ponder, "can we do what we're doing, better?"
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I think we ask that question all the time. And the answer is almost always "Yes". But the problem is that the systems in place are so entrenched that it's impossible, or will take decades, to change.

Someone mentioned unions. They absolutely would not allow a building of that magnitude to be erected in 19 days. Would they even permit the off-site building of sub-assemblies, especially if that labor were non-union? Doubtful.

And try to imagine the inspections required during the building process. With the bureaucracy in the US, it would takes months for the inspections alone.
 
Humpy said:
The value of modularized construction of buildings in the US is dubious. Splitting the same amount of work into various locations, and bringing it all back together in the end, doesn't accomplish much when so many of the materials and methods have already been standardized for years.

It's not a new idea or difficult to do. The fact that it isn't widespread pretty much tells the whole story.
Click to expand...

To be fair, there's no shortage of negative campaigning against pre-fab/modular by traditional builders and the unions that associate with them.

Construction is a backbone economy of the US. If we built our houses in a mass production factory we'd be gutting entire populations of tradesmen.
 
Humpy said:
The value of modularized construction of buildings in the US is dubious. Splitting the same amount of work into various locations, and bringing it all back together in the end, doesn't accomplish much when so many of the materials and methods have already been standardized for years.

It's not a new idea or difficult to do. The fact that it isn't widespread pretty much tells the whole story.
Click to expand...

The real reason is that there is no demand for it. Who absolutely needs a new building in 19 days? If this construction approach causes less disruption and noise on-site, who is demanding it? Lastly, there might even be a major cost-savings to be had if you were erecting a lot of buildings that were similar in design and construction. But who would be demanding all of these buildings at one time here?

The answer to all of these questions is "nobody".
 
I believe modular building techniques are superior to on-site construction but all buildings are only as good as the parts used to make them. China is not known for providing good steel or concrete.
 
monkeydelmagico said:
I believe modular building techniques are superior to on-site construction but all buildings are only as good as the parts used to make them. China is not known for providing good steel or concrete.
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Japanese steel was known for being shitty back in the early 90's

Remember the early toyotas with rust under the wheel wells.

Can you find any 90's toyota that didn't have rust under the wheel wells?

They tightened up. I don't think it would be hard for them to make better steel.
 
steppinthrax said:
Japanese steel was known for being shitty back in the early 90's

Remember the early toyotas with rust under the wheel wells.

Can you find any 90's toyota that didn't have rust under the wheel wells?

They tightened up. I don't think it would be hard for them to make better steel.
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Some folks who inspect chinese structures may disagree with you. Not ancient history either, we're talking 2013.

Bay and Verrazano bridges are some examples of questionable chinese steel as well.

We're not talking economy cars here, this is important and expensive infrastructure. Failure is not an option.

While I agree they probably could make better steel, they sometimes don't..... for what reasons only they could answer
 
Humpy said:
The value of modularized construction of buildings in the US is dubious. Splitting the same amount of work into various locations, and bringing it all back together in the end, doesn't accomplish much when so many of the materials and methods have already been standardized for years.

It's not a new idea or difficult to do. The fact that it isn't widespread pretty much tells the whole story.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I don't really see all that much value for residential or commercial applications. Industrial is where modularization really has a chance. There's big money to be made if some of those lead times can be trimmed.
 
Houses around here get framed in a day or less. A truck pulls up with the wall sections and roof joists pre-fabbed. The onsite crew slaps it all together. Once a foundation gets poured the work goes so fast we refer to the concrete pumper as the "mushroom truck" innoculating housing spores.
 
DrPizza said:
To go from poor quality to high quality really isn't that big of a step
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Couldn't disagree more.

I don't care what grade of concrete you use if you don't mix it correctly (which is where most of their failures occur) or mind the conditions you pour it in it and how it is allowed to cure then it WILL fail. Many building materials are like this. If you get a 140Mph shingle and some scrub only does 4 nails instead of 6 then it's not 140MPH shingle anymore and again it will fail. I can go down the line of just about any material and say the same thing. Still takes a skilled worker to install it no matter what.

Their steel is impurity central, their drywall corrodes pipes.. as others have noted I'd love to see the quality of welds on that place.

http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire...ndard-materials-corruption-and-lax-regulation

The concrete the Romans setup is still standing, these guys can't even get it to last a decade? DC and NYC are fine examples of American concrete lasting for centuries so I don't think we are in question of our build quality, sounds like people are simple mindedly only excited about 'speed' of this project is all.

Also, for people who take the time and have the knowledge to build high quality such as myself, "building code" just translates to "The lowest spec that is legally allowed" So until they can even get to that, they are not even close to "High Quality"
 
Carson Dyle said:
The real reason is that there is no demand for it. Who absolutely needs a new building in 19 days? If this construction approach causes less disruption and noise on-site, who is demanding it? Lastly, there might even be a major cost-savings to be had if you were erecting a lot of buildings that were similar in design and construction. But who would be demanding all of these buildings at one time here?

The answer to all of these questions is "nobody".
Click to expand...

Hotel rebuilds? School or university projects that could be completed during the summer? In general, businesses would prefer a shorter ROI.

But the "nobody" is the contractors, and they are the ones that drive new techniques.
 
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