Sky City: the impressive skyscraper that China wanted to build in 90 days failing miserably

If there is a country in which extreme architectural works stand out, that is, of course, China. Within its borders we find the longest bridge in the world, the largest floating solar power plant in the world and the largest dam in the world, just to mention some of its most ambitious projects. However, although it has tried, it cannot hold the title of the tallest building in the world since it belongs to Dubai and the Burj Khalifa, opened in 2010.

In 2012, the government of the city of Changsha, in Hunan province, China, announced that the tallest building in the world would be builtbut it would be much more than that. As Treehugger points outnot only would it be tall enough to surpass the Burj Khalifa, but it would become a kind of city within the city where residents would have all the comforts and services to live there, which is why the project was called “Sky City”. “.

The construction of the building, which was to be 838 meters high, fell into the hands of Broad Sustainable Building (BSB), a construction company that, far from reducing the expectations of the project, increased the bet with a risky promise: they would have the building ready in just 90 days. By way of comparison, the Burj Khalifa, 828 meters high, it took 1,325 days to build. So how would they achieve such a feat? The key was in prefabricated modules.

When we talk about prefabrication, we imagine smaller projects, such as the Kiss House or Tiny Home, not a huge structure designed to accommodate thousands of people. But BSB was confident that its project, which consisted of starting to build the Sky City prefabricated modules six months before the formal start of construction, would have helped to achieve this reduced construction time. And these modules would represent 95% of the building.

Due to the modularity characteristics of the project, the construction company estimated that it would need less concrete, but some 270,000 tons of steel to build it (the Burj Khalifa has 39,000 tons of steel), which would be bought from Luxembourg, according to SCMP. In addition, he assured that the use of construction materials with toxins such as aldehydes, lead and asbestos would be avoided. And, although not too many structural details were provided, it was ensured that one of the main advantages of the building would be its resistance to phenomena as extreme as earthquakes.

A city in the heights

As we mentioned above, it would not be just a building, but a “city” with all its amenities. In its 202 floors, Sky City would have the capacity to accommodate 30,000 people and an enormous amount of spaces so that, if the residents so wished, they would never have to leave. 83% of the space would be used for residential use, 5% for a hotel and the rest for various schools, hospitals, nurseries, supermarkets and stores.

As if that were not enough, BSB said that the building would also have several sports facilities. These would range from six basketball courts up to 10 tennis courts. And there would be no lack of swimming pools and “green areas”. These last ones would not only be in the lower part, but distributed in the different levels of the Sky City, as we can see in the image above.

Sustainability would also be part of the project. Insulating the walls and windows with 15 cm with four-layer glass would have helped keep the interior temperature between 20 and 27 °C. The lighting would be entirely LED. Thus, this set of features would have saved a good amount of energy.

Problems and more problems

The project, whose estimated cost was $1.46 billion, received construction approval in November 2012 and the company said work would start in November of that year, but said it would take a little longer to complete. Instead of 90 days, you would now need 120 days. In July 2012, the inaugural ceremony of the project was held and the works related to the foundations began, but a few days later everything stopped due to the lack of an additional permit. according to .

Due to the enormous height of the building, local approval was not enough. It needed the approval of the national government. The Beijing authorities, before granting it, began an environmental evaluation that took a long time. They finally came to the conclusion that the work could not continue. The reason? It was in the vicinity of Lake Daze, last wetland in Changsha and home to some 135 species of birdsAmong them, the Siberian crane is critically endangered.

Environmental activists, who believed that Sky City would disrupt the migration and nesting of the crane, as well as other protected birds such as swans and the Amu Kestrel, lobbied the government to declare the wetland a “no-build zone”. Eventually the authorities agreed and work was banned on the site where Sky City was supposed to be built.

With construction plans completely stalled by authorities and under the watchful eye of environmentalists, the building’s foundations are now filled with water and used for fish farming. Of course, BSB assures that it is capable of carrying out this project and trusts that one day it will. Despite his optimism, he has another problem on the horizon: China has banned the construction of buildings over 500 meters tall in 2021, so if Sky City is destined to become a reality, it will possibly be outside China’s borders.

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