widthWhen it comes to building a large building day after day, Chinese construction companies are unparalleled. When workers in Wuhan built a hospital that can accommodate approximately 1,000 Covid 19 patients in eight days in February 2020, it caused an international sensation. Another lightning-fast construction project is now gaining fame: In Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province, a ten-story apartment building called Life Building was completed in a little over a day—and ready to move in.
According to the client, Broad Group, this is “the shortest construction time in the world” for a building of this size. This is not all. The company claimed in a video that from the modules used, a 200-story skyscraper can be built in record time, thereby creating living space for the entire village.
This sounds cheap, and when you know that Broad Group announced the construction of a 200-story modular tower in 2012, it was also a bit suspicious, but due to static immeasurable factors, the tower was never built. For Roland Bechmann, a member of the board of directors of Werner Sobek AG in Stuttgart and chairman of the German tall building association CTBH, this judgment is too simple. “The project is not a blueprint built in Germany, but it stuck a finger in the wound,” the engineer said. Because in this country, construction is generally too slow and too consumable. “The large-scale project in the city center, which took one and a half years to build, is a huge burden for the surrounding area.” Therefore, living architecture can be seen as a contribution to the discussion of how to change things.
Urban planning reference? there is nothing!
Nearly ten years ago, after the failed tower construction, Broad Group invested in the development of its special modular system. It looks like this: Standardized container size modules made of stainless steel with dimensions of 12.19 meters (length), 2.44 meters (width), and 3 meters (height) are used. They can be stacked and connected by folding the wall. The balcony is also folded. The power cord and electrical are already on the wall. When the unit arrives at the construction site, the internal work is completed, basically just tighten the screws.
The relationship between urban development and the environment? there is nothing. It doesn’t matter in China, it does matter in this country. Even with an eighty-five floor plan and standard equipment, it is impossible to start in the local market. The sound insulation does not meet German standards. Steel does not sound exactly like breathable walls and a good indoor climate. The module structure is still very interesting. The walls and floor are made of two stainless steel plates, which separate hundreds of small stainless steel pipes. The company claims that thanks to this sandwich system, these panels are ten times lighter and a hundred times stronger than traditional flooring.
No one in Germany will come up with the idea of using steel modules to build high-rise buildings. This kind of building material is more expensive than China, and the amount of building materials produced in China is high and the quantity is huge. In terms of life cycle, steel is better than concrete because it can be melted and recycled, but it lags far behind wood. Therefore, building materials from the forest are the first choice for local module builders. In this regard, “living architecture” is also not the main example of residential architecture. But “building leaner is something that our construction industry must continue to work on,” Bechmann said.
