Sounds like a hell of a job, an almost impossible one even. But that headline is indeed a true one. And if any country is capable of getting the job done, it is China. With the manpower, money and endless supply of professors and mathematicians, it’s a project that looks set to change the way buildings are constructed, at least in Asia anyway.
This is the building that is set to become the world’s tallest:
The specs of this building are equal to it’s mammoth size. It will have 17 helipads, schools, hospitals and apartments for 30,000 people. The building itself is going to be 838m tall, which will make it taller than the Burj Kalifa in Dubai.
The company building this structure is Broad Sustainable Building (BSB), which is part of the larger Broad Group, based in China. They have said they plan to build 5 storeys a day, which will mean the building will be complete in just 90 days. They previously built a 30 storey building in just 15 days. Their plan is to pre-fabricate all the parts of the building, for them then to be assembled on site. Foundation works are already underway, and are due to be completed by December. Incredibly, the Chinese government still haven’t given this project official approval, so the company must be supremely confident that it will be passed! I know I wouldn’t start and undertaking so large without proper planning consent!
But here’s the thing; there are many doubts from many experts that a building so tall, constructed of pre-fab parts, is not the right way to go about building something so large. One of the main concerns is there is no mention about wind loads on the documents available on Broad’s website. Being such a tall building, wind loads absolutely must be considered. Perhaps it’s an oversight on the website. Maybe wind loads have be taken into account but the company has simply chosen not to make that data available. I certainly hope so. I know I wouldn’t want to live in one of the apartments on the upper floors if it wasn’t safe.
Another risk is earthquakes. China is a pretty active quake zone and as we know in other places like Japan, tall buildings are constructed to withstand the extreme swaying brought on by earth tremors. I’m hoping that this has been taken into account too.
As the population of the world continues to expand, and explode in the biggest cities, spreading outwards is becoming less of an option. Going up however, isn’t. Upwards space is almost unlimited and can provide thousands of people with living space and retail options. But whilst it’s great that the world’s engineers are pushing the boundaries of high rise buildings, safety has to be paramount during the rush to build bigger and taller.
Would you live in a building like this? Or is it too tall and you’d prefer to be at ground floor level? All comments welcome in the section below.
Could you imagine if the lifts broke!!