A Chinese construction company has announced plans to build what will be the tallest skyscraper in the world and they hope to complete it in just three months. Sky City will be built in Changsha in China’s southeast region.
The 220-storey structure will reach 2,749 feet (838 m) toward the heavens once completed. It will be 32 feet taller than Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, which currently holds the record as the highest building on the planet.
Sky City will also be much more economical to build, with costs expected to run about half as much as the Dubai project. The price tag is estimated at £400 million, which is less than half the £940 spent on the Burj Khalifa, which also took more than five years to build.
The space will be used for a mix of residential and commercial purposes, including homes for over 17,000 residents and hospitals, schools, hotels, and offices. Over 100 high-speed elevators will be installed to help residents move from place to place.
The building’s designers, Broad Group, plan to have the project completed in 90 days. The construction schedule calls for five storeys to be added to the structure each day by building blocks for the skyscraper off site and transporting them to the job site. When these components arrive, they are fastened to the pieces already in place, much like putting building blocks together.
Broad Group says the building will be a sturdy one and will be able to withstand an earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0. (The likelihood of an event of this magnitude occurring is quite slim, and major destruction and loss of life would be expected over large areas if this type of event were to occur.)
The company has already used this type of building-block technique to construct a tower. Broad Group successfully completed construction of a 30-storey building in 15 days last year.
Before Broad Group can break ground on its latest project, it must get final approval from the Chinese government. The company hopes to start work before the end of December and have the project completed by the end of March 2013.
Previous Post
Pennine Tower Awarded Listed Building Status
