An inside view of Mini Sky, China's tallest prefab tower built in Changsha. (Photo : www.inhabitat.com)
China now holds the world record as having the tallest prefab tower after Chinese company Broad Sustainable Buildings (BSB) completed the construction of the 57-storey tower with 800 apartments in Changsha, China.
According to an article on Habitat.com, BSB was able to accomplish the construction of the flat pack tower at a surprising rate of three floors per day. The structure was erected in just 19 days.
As part of the government thrust toward sustainability in building construction, the tower was built with pre-fabricated modular pieces, with all the parts manufactured in factories and then brought to the construction site for assembly.
Zhang Zhue, chairman of Broad Sustainable Buildings, told the media that it would require more than 15,000 truckloads of concrete to build a similar tower through conventional ways.
The chairman also made an assurance that the tower is efficient, with eight inches of insulation and quadruple paned windows. He said that heat, cooling systems and power are integrated within the building and it provides dwellers with clean, breathable air.
The builder explained that the tower has three stages of air purification, which reduce particulates by 99.9 percent. It also has seven air changes per hour and completely provides fresh air that passes through heat recovery ventilators.
Dubbed the "Mini Sky," the tower is built around central atria, each three storeys high, measuring 30 feet high, and connected by ramps.
According to Zhang, these areas will form "sky streets" that will become communal spaces for various activities for dwellers such as basketball games to vertical farms, driving residents away from elevators and promoting a more traditional and sociable form of living.
He said that BSB is now working on Sky City One, a 200-storey building, which it claims to build in 90 days, but the project has been apparently stopped many times by authorities.
He added that the Mini Sky city was itself halted at 20 storeys and reduced in height from 97 storeys to 57 because it was built near the airport.
