The developer of the planned new world's tallest building, Sky City, is one step closer to making the colossal structure reality. Broad Sustainable Building has received government approvals to build the 2,749-foot, 220-story tower in Changsha, China. The Building Team will begin site work next month, according to Treehugger.com.
As its name suggests, Sky City is designed to be a fully functional city, complete with residential units for 4,450 families, schools, offices, a hospital, recreational spaces, theaters, hotel rooms, and nearly a million sf of vertical farms. In all, the tower will house 11 million sf of live, work, and play spaces. Apartments will range from 645 sf to more than 5,000 sf.
A six-mile-long ramp will link the entire structure, allowing occupants to move from floor to floor without taking one of the building's 92 elevators. The design also incorporates more than 50 courtyards that will house shared community spaces, such as basketball and tennis courts, swimming pools, and parks.
The program is certainly impressive in size and scale, but the most eye-popping fact about the project is construction schedule. By employing extensive prefabrication, the skyscraper will be assembled in just three months. As Treehugger's Lloyd Alter describes: "The Broad system is based on prefabricated floor panels that ship with everything need to go 3D packed along with it, so they are not shipping a lot of air. It all just bolts together. Broad claims that by building this way, they eliminate construction waste, lost time managing trades, keep tight cost control and can build at a cost 50% to 60% less than conventional construction."
Check out renderings and plans for the project:
Related Stories
| Apr 12, 2011
Metal cladding: Enhancing design with single-skin panels, MCMs, and IMPs
Single-skin metal panels, metal composite panels, and insulated metal panels can add both aesthetic and functional value to your projects, if you use them correctly.
| Apr 12, 2011
American Institute of Architects announces Guide for Sustainable Projects
AIA Guide for Sustainable Projects to provide design and construction industries with roadmap for working on sustainable projects.
| Apr 11, 2011
Wind turbines to generate power for new UNT football stadium
The University of North Texas has received a $2 million grant from the State Energy Conservation Office to install three wind turbines that will feed the electrical grid and provide power to UNT’s new football stadium.
| Apr 8, 2011
SHW Group appoints Marjorie K. Simmons as CEO
Chairman of the Board Marjorie K. Simmons assumes CEO position, making SHW Group the only firm in the AIA Large Firm Roundtable to appoint a woman to this leadership position
| Apr 5, 2011
Zaha Hadid’s civic center design divides California city
Architect Zaha Hadid is in high demand these days, designing projects in Hong Kong, Milan, and Seoul, not to mention the London Aquatics Center, the swimming arena for the 2012 Olympics. But one of the firm’s smaller clients, the city of Elk Grove, Calif., recently conjured far different kinds of aquatic life when members of the City Council and the public chose words like “squid,” “octopus,” and “starfish” to describe the latest renderings for a proposed civic center.
| Apr 5, 2011
Are architects falling behind on BIM?
A study by the National Building Specification arm of RIBA Enterprises showed that 43% of architects and others in the industry had still not heard of BIM, let alone started using it. It also found that of the 13% of respondents who were using BIM only a third thought they would be using it for most of their projects in a year’s time.
