I've witnessed something similar. During the 2008 Olympics, I studied abroad in Beijing and was pretty fortunate to stay at the BNU campus where they hosted the training complex for the U.S. Olympians. I saw with my own eyes a 5 story training complex built from the ground up in two weeks.
They did it in day/night shifts. One team worked day while one team worked night. At around the 12 hour mark they would switch off. They wore no helmets or masks and worked quite rapidly. There was maybe one or two hours when the building was not being worked on.
In the end, the product was impressive and sturdy. The building looked slick and I know for sure our athletes liked it. I saw the swim, fencing, and basketball teams walk in and out of it.
I find it sad that this would never happen in the US. There is so much red tape to cut through, construction projects of just simple diners takes months. Getting small cites to act and do inspections takes planning since they rarely act with any sense of urgency plus the amount of inspections needed at every step of the project.
I'd like to note that the foundation had already been laid. Considering the foundation work is largely the longest process in the building anyway, I don't see a 6-day building time as an improvement when you've still got to wait a month or more for the foundation to be laid and cured, then you really haven't advanced much.
Considering that they used 6 cranes and crews working throughout the night, this was still a 18-day regular construction for 8-hour work days. Assuming the 6 cranes were performing equally and to their max this would have been 108-days of construction using a regular Western crew with 1 crane. Roughly a total 30-week construction - sounds about typical to me for non-prefabricated construction, if not rather slow in man-hour comparison and we're talking opposed to unionized labor which is possibly the slowest construction workforce in existence.
There was a time when America was noted for record breaking achievements like this, Chicago towards the end of the 19th century springs to mind.
They weren't too bothered back then about worker safety and the like, much like China today
We had an in-and-out built in Redwood City in about 30 days. I thought that was a world-class amazing feat of engineering, project management, and construction. I'm somewhat in awe of the 15-story hotel project. I wonder if the process/margins/tools they used are repeatable, or whether it made sense just as a stunt.
This reminds me of the german house build on Grand Designs that went up in a few days. Prefab is definitely quicker.
You can apply factory optimisations to prefabricate - and store materials.
This reduces dependencies, and thus delays, and also increases speed. It reduces injuries, waste, environmental impact, building disturbances for neighbours. The quality is also improved.
Make a modern factory at every site where you want to build something, or have the modern factory send prefabricated parts?
[+] [-] kin|15 years ago|reply
They did it in day/night shifts. One team worked day while one team worked night. At around the 12 hour mark they would switch off. They wore no helmets or masks and worked quite rapidly. There was maybe one or two hours when the building was not being worked on.
In the end, the product was impressive and sturdy. The building looked slick and I know for sure our athletes liked it. I saw the swim, fencing, and basketball teams walk in and out of it.
[+] [-] TGJ|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] electromagnetic|15 years ago|reply
Considering that they used 6 cranes and crews working throughout the night, this was still a 18-day regular construction for 8-hour work days. Assuming the 6 cranes were performing equally and to their max this would have been 108-days of construction using a regular Western crew with 1 crane. Roughly a total 30-week construction - sounds about typical to me for non-prefabricated construction, if not rather slow in man-hour comparison and we're talking opposed to unionized labor which is possibly the slowest construction workforce in existence.
[+] [-] davidw|15 years ago|reply
http://www.doingbusiness.org/
[+] [-] vb6|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ataggart|15 years ago|reply
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQscE3Xed64
[+] [-] ghshephard|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jws|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Groxx|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raquo|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] illumen|15 years ago|reply
You can apply factory optimisations to prefabricate - and store materials.
This reduces dependencies, and thus delays, and also increases speed. It reduces injuries, waste, environmental impact, building disturbances for neighbours. The quality is also improved.
Make a modern factory at every site where you want to build something, or have the modern factory send prefabricated parts?
[+] [-] lukeschlather|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gukjoon|15 years ago|reply
On the eighth day, it falls over: http://gizmodo.com/5304233/entire-new-13+story-building-tips...
Maybe that red tape is there for a reason.
[+] [-] Judson|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] varjag|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lotusleaf1987|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alanh|15 years ago|reply