

China Builds 30-Story Hotel In Just 15 Days - kpantsman
http://singularityhub.com/2012/01/11/china-builds-30-story-hotel-in-just-15-days-video/

======
tokenadult
Over the last year or two here on Hacker News I've seen several credulous,
gee-whiz stories about China submitted from Singularity Hub.

<http://singularityhub.com/tag/china/>

I don't think that Singularity Hub, insofar as it curates stories at all, does
a good job of curating stories about China. A lot of stories about China
today, written by correspondents who don't know the Chinese language (as I do)
and have contact with everyday people in China (as I do to a limited extent),
read like stories about the United States housing market before the housing
bubble collapsed in 2008. A minority of journalists knew from the beginning
that the United States housing bubble was a bubble (I recall a Business Week
story saying that way back in 2005), but lots of people kept saying that NOT
investing in real estate was a chump move right up until the day before the
market collapse in the United States.

Similarly, China's "progress" in building high-speed rail lines looked like an
example to the world until a deadly crash

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/07/23/china-train-
co...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/07/23/china-train-
collision.html)

[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43865656/ns/world_news-
asia_paci...](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43865656/ns/world_news-
asia_pacific/t/die-china-high-speed-train-crash/)

<http://www.economist.com/node/21525419>

that has now prompted doubts about the program among Chinese government
officials.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-28/china-
punishes-54-o...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-28/china-
punishes-54-officials-over-fatal-high-speed-rail-crash.html)

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-16345592>

Much of China's new construction in recent years is not affordable to most
Chinese citizens, and the government there is wary of a housing market
collapse.

[http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-10/china-may-
ease-p...](http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-10/china-may-ease-
property-curbs-to-prevent-collapse-ubs-says.html)

The P.R.C. government is also wary of popular discontent with regard to other
issues,

[http://www.npr.org/2012/01/11/144994861/china-targets-
entert...](http://www.npr.org/2012/01/11/144994861/china-targets-
entertainment-tv-in-cultural-purge)

[http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2011-12-28/china-
me...](http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2011-12-28/china-mental-
hospitals/52260592/1)

and censors all mass media

<http://www.cfr.org/china/media-censorship-china/p11515>

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15615952>

to such a degree that I wouldn't bet on current press reports based on Chinese
media sources giving the full story of conditions there.

~~~
JonnieCache
China has these "ghost cities," which are built all over the place but nobody
wants to live in. Whole, fully equipped cities built and then left empty for
years and years because nobody wants to live there.

<http://www.businessinsider.com/china-ghost-cities-2011-11>

[http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/06/why-
chin...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/06/why-chinas-ghost-
towns-matter-for-our-economy/240629/)

[http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1975397,00.htm...](http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1975397,00.html)

Can someone knowledgable in such matters explain to me why this does not
indicate the chinese economy is headed inexorably towards a massive crash,
especially considering the huge amount of fraud which we all know occurs
there? Is it just to do with the amount of central planning and control they
have?

(Also, which of the many and varied financial gambling instruments available
in this modern world should I use to best profit from this contingency?)

~~~
Steko
"but nobody wants to live in"

Not true, people want to live there, most just can't afford it. In fact in
some of these towns most of the units have been sold -- just not sold to
people who live there.

"Can someone explain why this does not indicate the Chinese economy is headed
inexorably towards a massive crash"

Probably in the same way that no one going to see Adventures of Pluto Nash
didn't cause a massive crash in the US economy or even in the film industry
here. I'll elaborate...

What percent of the Chinese economy is real estate? 6%?

What % of Chinese real estate do these ghost towns represent? 1%? 5%? 10%?

Are there 20 success stories (boom towns) for every ghost town? 5? 10? 100?
None?

Ghost towns maybe a real and dangerous symptom of a coming Chinese crash. Or
not. It's really hard to jump from "giant examples of waste" to "the economy
is going to crash".

There are certainly other indicators that housing is a huge bubble in parts of
China. There's also the inexorable and unbelievable growth that China has
experienced over the last few decades. Growth like that has a tendency to make
lots of things look like bubbles that aren't.

~~~
polshaw
Lets not forget China's economy is overwhelmingly export driven; so the fact
that they might decide to build towns and not use them- whilst seeming really
odd- doesn't seem to me to be predictive of any kind of an economic crash.

The difficulties that western economies are having would seem a much greater
threat to China's economy than this.

------
poutine
While an impressive engineering feat, this probably isn't equal to a similar
sized hotel in the US.

Having lived in a new and quite upscale (rent was 8K RMB/mo, apartment sold
for $500k USD) Chinese apartment in Beijing for a couple years and visited
many others I can attest that the build quality is absolutely awful. The stuff
they're building will not last. Buildings in China are built for instant
gratification using the lowest skilled labour available with fit and
finishings that only look good from a distance.

This is why PPP GDP adjustment is such BS. The argument goes that you have a
skyscraper in Shanghai and one in New York you have a skyscraper's unit of
wealth in both places, though the one in Shanghai costs half as much to build.
Therefore you double the GDP gor China (figures for illustration) in order to
account for this purchasing parity issue. Problem is, that the skyscraper in
Shanghai will last a fraction of time that the one in New York does. China is
the land of McMansion skyscrapers.

~~~
Krylez
Web Urbanist just covered a dangerous and common Chinese demolition method.
The article mentions an apartment building that was demolished the same year
it was built (2011) due to poor planning.
[http://weburbanist.com/2012/01/08/high-anxiety-rooftop-
excav...](http://weburbanist.com/2012/01/08/high-anxiety-rooftop-excavators-
tear-down-from-up-top/)

~~~
laconian
That article specifically says "Believe it or not, in China at least,
demolition via rooftop excavator is the safer, cleaner, and above all cheaper
option."

But yeah, that looks _crazy_.

------
yannis
I am involved with a construction Company that operates in the Gulf area. The
average hotel we have been involved with is about 50 stories high.

On a multinational Team from design to construction it can take a minimum of
36-50 months. Yes time can be cut -- certainly not to 15 days -- but not with
the way large developments are currently build. The average rate of floor
construction (with a prestressed slab) is 4-7 days, so the absolute minimum
time required to get just the structure going will be >57 weeks. The average
rate to get a single bath tub approved by the Consultant, Engineer, Client,
Finance etc., is normally 3 months. To get a Hotel room approved down to the
last fitting, carpets, access systems, IPTV, media hub, lighting, air
conditioning and everything co-ordinated is anybody's guess, but again not
less than six months.

On the current Project we are just finishing (5 luxury hotels), we have over
100 km of steel piping just for fire protection and chilled water for the air
conditioning systems. There are over 50 systems involved, such as data, IPTV,
WI-Fi etc. At peak we had over 5000 people working on the Project.

No chance in hell that an up to standard hotel can be finished in 15 days.

~~~
teyc
There was an old news article talking about how this Chinese guy started a
factory. He had a plot of land, and went out with a contractor, paper pad in
hand, roughly drawing the outline of the factory, as well as where the offices
were going to be.

Construction started two days later.

No approvals, no drafting, every decision was made on the fly. That's what I
call agile.

~~~
learc83
Agile indeed. It works with software b/c you can change it on the fly. Once
you pour concrete and realize you made a mistake you're in for real problems.

~~~
teyc
I'm sure they'd have change in requirements, but that happens in any project.
However, the obvious distinction here is there is no development application,
or approvals from government. This is the wild west.

------
noodle
China assembles a 30 story hotel in just 15 days. China builds a 30 story
hotel in an unspecified length of time.

edit: Sorry this warranted downvotes. If I were trying to build a prefab home
for myself, I wouldn't count the "build" time as time from parts arriving on
site. I feel it to be disingenuous. There's a lot more to the process than
just assembly of parts. Its definitely interesting that they can assemble
things this quickly, but the fact that they can do this is not new. Example:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1911060>

~~~
BHSPitMonkey
Regardless of how much work was done offsite, it's still a unique feat to see
an empty lot turn into a 30-floor skyscraper in such a ridiculously short
amount of time; there's no doubt it's mentionworthy. However, as others have
mentioned here, it doesn't look like anything to cheer about in terms of real
quality or durability. There's a reason our methods take longer.

~~~
noodle
I suppose my point is that it isn't unique, either. They've been doing this
for years and there are videos galore including past submissions on HN as I
linked.

------
brady747
Good summary by everyone above...China does many impressive things but
examples like this are also possible due to lack of oversight, lack of
regulation, and corruption (obviously the 'correct' level of oversight and
regulation is a struggle in many countries, USA included).

My most recent stay in Beijing (20th floor of a hotel/condo building) seemed
wonderful (all things considered) until I discovered an oddity one day. My
door had no way to disable the door lock from the inside except by key. It
took a minute for the implications of this to dawn on me (hint: there is a
fire, you can't find your keys, and you like to keep your door locked). Took
about 5 weeks before I even noticed the issue (one day I went to leave the
apartment and couldn't find my keys and I went to talk to the front desk and
realized I couldn't leave the suite).

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
THIS SCARES THE SHIT out of me. And it is NOT just in China, Lots of European
countries have this. We went to Italy and Greece and the doors were like that.

Huge multiple dead bolts, heavy metal doors, and you need a key to get OUT as
well as in. It was at that time that I was thankful for the rules we have here
in the US. At the end of our stay in Athens Greece we actually got locked IN
the apartment building at 5am because the owner of the building instructed us
to simply leave the keys on the table and close the door behind you. When we
got down to the door to the hall of the apartments we couldn't get OUT.

So in Europe you better have a key on each of your family members or else you
might get locked IN.

------
tpatke
You might also want to check out an article the BBC is running today which
says that sky scrapers are linked with impending financial crashes.
Specifically mentions China.

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16494013>

Apparently, whole cities are being built in anticipation of people wanting to
live there (ie, filling demand which doesn't exist).

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2010/11...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2010/11/china_boom_or_bust_1.html)

~~~
betterth
Filling demand which doesn't exist? China has an impoverished farmer/rural
class to the tune of 600,000,000 - 700,000,000 people, and it is incredibly
difficult to transition from a rural pass to a city pass, from what I've read.
Difficulty in transition, to me, implies that their is a much greater demand
to move into cities than the government is willing to allow currently. Why
make it hard if you're begging people to move in?

EDIT: I know little of China, I'm posing this question in earnest to learn
more!

~~~
Game_Ender
The demand doesn't exist because those people can't pay to live in a brand new
sky scraper. From what I have seen those units are in the 10's to 100's of
thousands of dollars. Way outside the budget of a rural Chinese person.

------
smackfu
Skyscraper construction is actually quite fast, even if you don't do it
modularly. A floor should only take a day or two for initial construction,
with other trades following behind and adding cladding, electrical, etc. Steel
beams are modular, after all.

The slow parts are preparing the foundation, which seems to be skipped over
here in the timeline, and pouring and drying concrete bits, which this
building doesn't have.

------
thematt
It would be more accurate to say the hotel was _assembled_ in 15 days. Most of
the pieces were already built off-site.

------
lucaspiller
It took 15 days for the final construction. Most of the building was
prefabricated off site. Any ideas how long this stage took?

~~~
Codhisattva
Yeah, it's a bit deceptive to say "15 days to build". The modules surely took
less than time than building from scratch, but still a significant amount of
time.

~~~
rabble
Yeah, kind of like saying you have to count all the time spent on ruby, rails,
and all the gems you're using when you do Rails Rumble.

Making construction modular and plug and play is a hugely important
innovation.

~~~
Codhisattva
True but nothing new. We've had it in the US for decades for all types of
construction.

------
corin_
Not having to care about health & safety is certainly one factor in the speed
of Chinese builders, I've seen some crazy stuff in the preperation for
consumer events.

------
mrbgty
How do they get the crane off the roof of the building when its finished?

~~~
huxley
The cranes are designed to be easy to dismantle. For bigger cranes, they'll
actually bring up a smaller crane which will be used to lower the parts of the
bigger crane.

This has a few more details and links:

[http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5787150_cranes-removed-sky-
scra...](http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5787150_cranes-removed-sky-
scrapers_.html)

~~~
mattparlane
But how do they get THAT crane down?

~~~
dasil003
With a series of progressively smaller cranes until finally:

[http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2610/3699889213_30575a56d0_m.j...](http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2610/3699889213_30575a56d0_m.jpg)

------
ryanjmo
In reading the comments it looks like I'm in the complete minority here, but I
think this was impressive.

People are mentioning that there will possibly be problems with the hotel, or
a story of how a similarly constructed hotel failed in one way or another.

However, once the company constructs 30 of these hotels all of these bugs will
soon be worked out. It is the fast iteration and refining of the process that
will eventually enable this company to create a building that is close in
quality to what takes much longer to build in the US.

tldr; Construction companies in China are able to act web startups in the US.
This will give them an advantage in the long term.

~~~
mkramlich
Building construction is one of the few industries that I do NOT want to ever
act like a US web startup. Along with airplane construction and medical
devices.

------
Shenglong
To contrast:

It's been almost 4 months of construction here in London, ON (Canada),
building a new residence. They haven't even laid the foundation yet, and all I
see every day when I walk by, is about 9 people smoking for every 2 people
working.

~~~
GFKjunior
Even more of a contrast is the New York City Subway extensions that are
proposed to take 10 years!

~~~
tomkarlo
Apples and oranges. At least until recently, NY was known for having some of
the fastest building construction teams in the world, and some of the only
ones able to put up a story every two days. by having them pouring on one side
of the floor and drying on the other.

------
rplnt
This didn't seem to make much sense in desert (or wherever they were building
it) but it makes sense in populated areas. You reduce noise and pollution from
one year to one week and that's great. Also workforce has probably better
conditions under the roof than on the roof.

Also, similar video from 2 years ago:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPSxt5A23MI>

------
ericdykstra
Hopefully it's more solidly constructed than the Shanghai bridge that was made
out of trash: [http://www.weirdasianews.com/2010/02/05/shanghai-
wonderbridg...](http://www.weirdasianews.com/2010/02/05/shanghai-wonderbridge-
trash-collapses/)

~~~
danso
The first thing I thought of was this: [http://gizmodo.com/5304233/entire-
new-13+story-building-tips...](http://gizmodo.com/5304233/entire-new-13+story-
building-tips-over-in-shanghai/gallery/1)

------
nekojima
"Tofu Hotel"... despite the marketing propaganda.

I really hope these projects are publicized enough so that when I am in China,
I can avoid these buildings and the buildings next to them, in case they
collapse and cause a domino effect or sympathy collapse.

------
orenmazor
I like to look at this article as a response to the linked one.

[http://weburbanist.com/2012/01/08/high-anxiety-rooftop-
excav...](http://weburbanist.com/2012/01/08/high-anxiety-rooftop-excavators-
tear-down-from-up-top/)

------
afterburner
Although the preconstructed aspects of this make the figure less impressive
anyways, I am also deeply unimpressed with any large projects like this that
China does fast or cheap, due to the low quality and safety standards typical
there.

------
devmach
So what about security ? As i can see (from the video), they didn't covered
the steel structure with any fireproofing material ?

------
Iv
Now let's do the same thing without human intervention !

------
williamle8300
but how fast will the fully-plaster structure come crashing down?

------
ta12121
Yes, but which would you rather be in when an earthquake hits?

------
jsavimbi
And they tear them down just as quickly:
[http://weburbanist.com/2012/01/08/high-anxiety-rooftop-
excav...](http://weburbanist.com/2012/01/08/high-anxiety-rooftop-excavators-
tear-down-from-up-top/)

