The worst of...
http://gizmodo.com/5693343/this-is-what-happens-when-the-chinese-build-too-fast

The best of...
http://gizmodo.com/5687521/chinese-build-15+story-hotel-in-just-six-days-rest-on-seventh


That second one is awesome... I wish they would build all buildings like that, everywhere. Cuts down on a lot of expenses, time, and accidents.

11/28/2010 9:44:22 AM

Well let's just see how well that building was designed and constructed first. They are known for their engineering and construction failures.

11/28/2010 10:10:06 AM

The analysis in the first video is simplified but correct. BTW, the developers of that building have been sentenced to life in prison.

I have to call BS on the second video though. The building shell/superstructure was erected and partially finished in six days but it was definitely not completed.

The video didn't show:
Erosion control operations
Site clearing
Site grading
Footing excavation (that's if they could even do shallow foundations)
Footing rebar and concrete placement
Rough in of under slab utilites
Slab preparation
Slab concrete placement, finishing, and curing (at least 24 hours there)
Structural inspections (you can't tell me they put this thing up without their being a problem, the structural engineer being notified of the problem, and the problem getting resolved correctly. I have a feeling that the contractor just fixed whatever problems came along.)
Interior finishing (about 1/3 to 2/3 of some construction schedules.)
Architect and structural engineer punchlist

Even at the pace they were going, at best there would have been another 5 days worth of construction.

Quote :

"I wish they would build all buildings like that, everywhere. Cuts down on a lot of expenses, time, and accidents."

You say that until a bunch are occupied and fall over. If an owner or developer wanted a building like that constructed in that time frame, they would have them built like that. But it's their money so who cares.

[Edited on November 28, 2010 at 10:15 AM. Reason : -]

11/28/2010 10:14:15 AM

^that's probably because most of that didn't happen/happen properly. chinese shortcuts man.

11/28/2010 10:17:56 AM

Exactly the point.

ITT, the OP is unaware of the construction process.

11/28/2010 10:19:07 AM

ITT Extreme makeover home edition.

11/28/2010 10:48:33 AM

Foundations were already in place.

I have a feeling whatever company made this hotel has made nearly identical hotels all over china, so structural problems probably weren't an issue.

11/28/2010 10:59:25 AM

Quote :

"Foundations were already in place."

That's what I'm getting at. They didn't build a hotel in 6 days, they built it in 6 days plus extra.

11/28/2010 11:35:10 AM

They show one shot of them doing all the plasterboard inside. Probably didnt finish it but ya.

Im suprised they didnt start on the lower levels when they were working on the upper. They finished the whole frame before they sealed the building.

11/28/2010 11:37:30 AM

who the fuck fucking cares if they didn't fucking show all of it you fuckstick. no one cares that you have a construction management degree, not a single goddamn person. 6 days is fast as fucking shit.

11/28/2010 11:37:37 AM

11/28/2010 11:46:40 AM

The Amish build it better faster stronger.

Barn raising ITT

11/28/2010 11:51:22 AM

We could build shit in 6 days too if we didn't care about the environment, workmanship, or worker safety. I didn't see how they could have done a single weld inspection with all of those cranes operating and slinging steel up.

11/28/2010 12:07:43 PM

the inspections are done when they are prefabbed, the actual construction bolts the prefabbed units together

11/28/2010 12:18:28 PM

^ if it’s prefabbed, that may not even be relevant.

11/28/2010 12:23:32 PM

did you watch the video or read the link even just a little? it is.

11/28/2010 12:29:02 PM

We've also had various rapid construction capabilities here in the US for a while, but the deployment of stuff like this is limited for obvious reasons.

Here's an example of this related to the communications industry (which I currently work in):
http://www.porticus.org/bell/longlines.html

After certain terrorist attacks, the ability to rapidly construct communications towers was made real: http://www.porticus.org/bell/longlines.html#AT&T%20Long%20Lines%20Department%20TD-2%20Microwave%20Radio%20Restoration%20Van

Here was the damage caused: http://www.porticus.org/bell/longlines-expdam.html

Those structures are incredibly strong and still in very good shape today, although the paint is peeling.


As for another example of rapid assembly (more recent, done in the US) here's a bridge that was taken out of service for 49 hours (per the video, I would assume actual delays were slightly longer than that) to allow for full replacement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dTZIZmLlWs


Here's another example of new construction/assembly technology being put into service in the US: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e36gUTytjA This is actually economical and makes a lot of sense from a labor standpoint.

11/28/2010 12:40:05 PM

Quote :

"the inspections are done when they are prefabbed, the actual construction bolts the prefabbed units together "

Bolts? this just went from questionable to downright stupid. How do they plan on doing future maintenance on those bolts?

11/28/2010 12:46:32 PM

Quote :

"the inspections are done when they are prefabbed, the actual construction bolts the prefabbed units together"

The bolted connection needs to be inspected in the field to make sure the correct grade and size bolt was used and torqued correctly. This is Chapter 17 in the IBC shit.

11/28/2010 12:59:03 PM

its china, they could have 1000 inspectors on site for all you know. again, no one cares that you have a construction management degree. you aren't the only one.

11/28/2010 1:04:16 PM

They spent a lot of time prefabbing all that shit. Shouldn't that time count? Even aside from all the stuff they didn't finish in the video, there's all that stuff they put together in the shop before they shipped it out there.

Quote :

"I wish they would build all buildings like that, everywhere. Cuts down on a lot of expenses, time, and accidents"

If that was true, that's the way Contractors would do it. They love faster, cheaper, and safer.

Quote :

"I have a feeling whatever company made this hotel has made nearly identical hotels all over china, so structural problems probably weren't an issue."

We've built identical schools all over wake/harnett county, and issues still come up. They always come up.

11/28/2010 1:52:04 PM

eleusis, a surveyor in real life, is a PE ITT.

11/28/2010 1:56:35 PM

^^by prefabrication allows for better quality control. A lot of times problems come from things not being built to specification, prefabrication makes this much harder to do.

^PLS? why would a PE be a surveyor?

Quote :

" We could build shit in 6 days too if we didn't care about the environment, workmanship, or worker safety"

they didn't have a single on-site accident in the construction of that building, that speaks to good management. they say the building is "level 9 earthquake certified", i can't find any specifics about this or the building but its pretty clear this isn't just something they slapped together. i don't understand why you all think that china doesn't have any engineers. the environmental consideration is probably valid but impact analysis and storm water mitigation and erosion and sediment control would have been established before construction anyways, so it wouldn't have effected how they came up with their timeline.

You absolutely could not build a building like that in 6 days here without prefabrication, no way you even come close.

11/28/2010 2:03:20 PM

i will reserve judgment until i hear ArcBoyeee's thoughts on the matter

11/28/2010 2:04:29 PM

i went through the same program as you all and i remember stuff about prefab construction

11/28/2010 2:10:06 PM

this is pretty old

11/28/2010 2:12:35 PM

the point is, the vertical construction was fast as shit

11/28/2010 4:03:09 PM

ITT, rbrthwrd thinks he knows shit and incorrectly assumes a person's college degree.

11/28/2010 4:49:49 PM

China isn't the only country to use prefabs. Prefab use isn't being argued with here anyway. Its a question whether or not the Chinese, known for their highly dangerous working conditions, made all of the necessary safety inspections, etc.

I don't understand why rbrthwrd is praising China for their working environment that often leads to deaths of innocent workers. Sounds like someone's a god damn communist.

11/28/2010 5:12:22 PM

rbrthwrd prefers construction techniques that lead to:

11/28/2010 5:13:41 PM

china is a resource-poor country; the one thing they have a glut of is people--why should they give a shit if a few people die?

11/28/2010 5:30:05 PM

^apparently humanitarians and liberals do.

11/28/2010 5:35:15 PM

ha, like they count

11/28/2010 5:36:12 PM

That's not building a building in 6 days. That's erecting a building in 6 days.

In addition to ALkatraz's pwning of their claim I'd like to add that to "build" that building in 6 days they had to first spend months/years building a manufacturing facility and months more to "build" the building blocks inside the manufacturing facility. No great achievement there. We've been doing this with manufactured homes in the US for decades. There are positives and negatives to it which is the main reason not all buildings are built this way.

11/28/2010 5:37:17 PM

Quote :

"I don't understand why rbrthwrd is praising China for their working environment that often leads to deaths of innocent workers."

not a single injury on the jobsite and pre-fab construction is safer than building in place. the reasoning should be simple, but this is the wolfweb so i guess you have to be contrarian and obtuse as some kind of rule.

Quote :

"1. Prefabrication Construction has traditionally involved the assembly of relatively small pieces (i.e., pieces that can be lifted by one worker or at least transported on a truck) in their permanent location. Prefabrication involves the assembly of pieces in one location, followed by the transportation of the assembled component to its permanent location and the final fit up. Prefabrication has increased steadily over the past 100 years because it facilitates improvements in cost, schedule and performance (Toole 2001; CII 2002; Hewitt and Gambatese 2002). Prefabrication also reduces the hazard level of a task in two ways. First, it allows the location of the work to be shifted to a lower hazard environment (Gambatese et al 1997). For example, work can be shifted from a high elevation to the ground (where fall injuries are much less likely), from an excavation to grade (where there is no risk of cave-in), or from a confined space to a clear space (where there is less risk of hazardous air quality). Second, prefabrication allows the work to be shifted from the field to a factory, which allows the use of safer, automated equipment, such as for cutting and welding. Factory equipment reduces the incidence of muscoskeletol hazards through improved safeguards and reduces air quality hazards through engineered ventilation. Bridge segments, structural steel column trees, steel stairs, concrete or wood wall panels, metal and wood joists and trusses, HVAC ducting, and plumbing pipe trees are all common examples of components that can be prefabricated using inherently safer processes and environments. "

http://www.designforconstructionsafety.org/Link%20Images/P75%20Future%20of%20DfCS%20toole%20and%20gambatese.doc

Quote :

" . Design prefab units that can be built on the Reduce worker exposure to falls and being on the ground and erected in place struck by falling objects "

http://www.asse.org/membership/docs/John%20Mroszczyk%20Article.doc

i mean fuck, i'll even google a company that will do it for you:
http://www.deluxebuildingsystems.com/what-we-build.aspx

and prefabrication and JIT building methods are part of lean supply systems that reduce waste. i mean this should really be common sense.

[Edited on November 28, 2010 at 5:52 PM. Reason : but its china, i'm sure no one there knows anything about engineering]

11/28/2010 5:50:48 PM

Quote :

"i don't understand why you all think that china doesn't have any engineers. the environmental consideration is probably valid but impact analysis and storm water mitigation and erosion and sediment control would have been established before construction anyways, so it wouldn't have effected how they came up with their timeline."

No one said China doesn't have any engineers. My boss is Chinese and an engineer. But contractors are contractors.

I'm a CE not a CEM.

It so trivial now but the point I'm was getting at earlier is this:
If it took 6, 12, or 18 days to from groundbreaking to occupation, I think that is cool and a miraculous feat. But if it took you 12 days, and you post videos on the internet saying it took you 6, then you're lying and wrong.

Quote :

"^^by prefabrication allows for better quality control. A lot of times problems come from things not being built to specification, prefabrication makes this much harder to do. "

I've inspected my fair of structural steel.
Structural steel is prefabbed and is shipped to job sites.
Structural steel bolts are prefabbed and are shipped to job sites.
The contractor's erector puts the steel together.
Sometimes stuff is wrong. See the following list:
The embeds in the footings are off or wrong.
A piece of steel is too long or short.
The bolts the erector used were wrong.
The erector didn't torque the bolts correctly.
The bolt holes don't line up correctly.
The steel delivery got delayed.

Sometimes the prefabricator is to blame, most of the time he isn't. But it becomes the erector's problem to fix during construction. The prefabricator could have done all of his stuff perfrectly but if other people mess up, it can affect how his steel fits together. It's too hard for me to believe that stuff didn't go according to plan.

[Edited on November 28, 2010 at 6:11 PM. Reason : -]

11/28/2010 6:01:38 PM

considering china's definition of engineer is pretty liberal... yeh, they have lots of engineers. many with barely more than a high school education.

11/28/2010 6:07:30 PM

On a related note...Money Magazine had a great "top 50 growth jobs in the US" list last month that placed Civil Engineering pretty high on the list (top 10 iirc). At first I was skeptical until I read their reasoning. Construction in growing markets (China, India, etc) is pulling a lot of the non-American engineers back to their home regions leaving more American engineering to people who were born here. Add to that the outdated infrastructure (dams, bridges, buildings, etc) and you get the picture. It's actually not a bad place to be right now.

11/28/2010 6:13:52 PM

Quote :

"they say the building is "level 9 earthquake certified""

yes. they also say their gymnasts are older than 16, lol

11/28/2010 6:24:10 PM

I can only speak to the design part of things. Having said that I think that there are two different pre-fab types out there. Each with its own dependency and bounds.


1.) Prefabbed units that are subtle variations of the key unit all placed with a certain hierarchy in a specific super-structure that keeps the units in due bounds.

2.) Buildings like the one in question (or that fell over, intact) that have prefabbed components: floor slabs, sections of steel, windows, etc. Much like a lego set. You have only so many already made components that you may use in your palette. The dip in cost here comes from bulk buying of the same component (think Sams).

Im both cases, structures are assembled with techniques that are usually over engineered. But, a weakness potentially may come into play when there are flaws in a component instead of flaws in the system holding them together. For example, let's take a local building, the Bath Building @ North and Wilmington. It was built in the architectural style called "Brutalism." It's called that not because of what it does to the surrounding context (which is brutal), but because it was made out of one material - a shit load of concrete. It was poured in such a way that the building acts as a monolithic mass rather than an interconnected system of like parts. The one giant mass has (should have in theory) less opportunity for builder error or material fault than many of the pieces that make up an assemblage of parts in the other case.

By nature - assembling parts has been safer than constructing parts and assembling them. There's less for you to fuck up, less dangerous work (i.e pouring concrete at high altitude, thi nk Burj Dubai).

Back to the Toppling Building - that building looks pretty sound. Shit, it fell as one piece. It was the geotechnical engineer that was at fault. They are responsible for impact studies, bearing soil calculations and tons of other related issues. Miscommunication between contractor of parking lot and engineer is noted, too. The engineer, which is certified (SHOULD HAVE) most certainly been notified of the digging and returned a "um, no, that's stupid and will make shit fall down." Or, he could have given it a green light - in which case he/she should not have a license in the first place.


[Edited on November 28, 2010 at 6:35 PM. Reason : blount st commons]

11/28/2010 6:26:59 PM

11/28/2010 6:27:37 PM

Quote :

"i will reserve judgment until i hear ArcBoyeee's thoughts on the matter"

Im surprised hes not all over this thread. Then again hes more architecture. Not CE/CEM.

11/28/2010 6:29:04 PM

looks like china needs some better geo-tech engineers.



by the way.... this is a bearing capacity failure due to scour

[Edited on November 28, 2010 at 6:35 PM. Reason : x]

11/28/2010 6:34:06 PM

Quote :

"this is a bearing capacity failure due to scour"

No it isn't. The piles failed in shear due to an increase in lateral earth stress. The increase in lateral stress was the result of a slope stability failure due to rain as shown in the video.

11/28/2010 7:52:50 PM

ITT T-dub's engineers get their panties in a wad. Virtually every comment in this thread could be responded to by, "Well, no shit."

11/28/2010 8:13:58 PM

^Well, no shit

11/28/2010 8:19:44 PM

Quote :

"eleusis, a surveyor in real life, is a PE ITT. "

I'm not a surveyor; I'm a engineer that licensed in 6 states. My dad is a surveyor, which is where I get my surveying background.

11/28/2010 8:25:02 PM

Quote :

"SIX STATE LICENSE"

11/28/2010 8:45:09 PM

What type of engineer?

11/28/2010 8:59:29 PM

I'm a set em up -----> engineer

11/28/2010 9:13:03 PM