Chinese workers build 15-story hotel in just six days | Hacker News Reader

Chinese workers build 15-story hotel in just six days

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57 pointsnano8128 comments

I've witnessed something similar. During the 2008 Olympics, I studied abroad in Beijing and was pretty fortunate to stay at the BNU campus where they hosted the training complex for the U.S. Olympians. I saw with my own eyes a 5 story training complex built from the ground up in two weeks.

They did it in day/night shifts. One team worked day while one team worked night. At around the 12 hour mark they would switch off. They wore no helmets or masks and worked quite rapidly. There was maybe one or two hours when the building was not being worked on.

In the end, the product was impressive and sturdy. The building looked slick and I know for sure our athletes liked it. I saw the swim, fencing, and basketball teams walk in and out of it.

I find it sad that this would never happen in the US. There is so much red tape to cut through, construction projects of just simple diners takes months. Getting small cites to act and do inspections takes planning since they rarely act with any sense of urgency plus the amount of inspections needed at every step of the project.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQscE3Xed64

I'd like to note that the foundation had already been laid. Considering the foundation work is largely the longest process in the building anyway, I don't see a 6-day building time as an improvement when you've still got to wait a month or more for the foundation to be laid and cured, then you really haven't advanced much.

Considering that they used 6 cranes and crews working throughout the night, this was still a 18-day regular construction for 8-hour work days. Assuming the 6 cranes were performing equally and to their max this would have been 108-days of construction using a regular Western crew with 1 crane. Roughly a total 30-week construction - sounds about typical to me for non-prefabricated construction, if not rather slow in man-hour comparison and we're talking opposed to unionized labor which is possibly the slowest construction workforce in existence.

> unionized labor which is possibly the slowest construction workforce in existence.

Any references for this statement? I have quite a few union friends who bust their asses 6 days a week doing construction, and would be kicked off their projects if they didn't..

One reference indicating greater speed for union labor (typically higher skilled, but more expensive per hour):

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-232X.1988....

Reference: "This study examines the impact of unions on efficiency in retail construction in the late seventies. Square footage put in place per hour is 51 per cent greater for union than nonunion contractors. The study finds no difference in mean cost per square foot and offers mixed econometric evidence on Tran slog cost functions. There is also no difference in profit rates or prices between union and nonunion contractors."

What if we correct for union membership and just look at skill level?

I don't know if they can be decoupled. One of the biggest improvements unions made is the apprenticeship requirement, which prevents businesses from hiring unskilled labor for skilled work at well below market rates.

Isn't the market rate defined as whatever you can get away with on the market? (Or do you mean, they hire unskilled labour below the market rate of skilled labour?)

I'm honestly curious, and not being critical here - How do you get 30 week construction from 108 days? Is a construction week 4 days?

Also, you do have to admit, that there are some inefficiencies involved in running shifts back-back, and using multiple cranes.

And the Project Plan and Management on this development must have been 10x what you would have seen in a typical six-nine month building project.

Ground prep, foundation laying and curing take around 2 months usually. Sorry, I meant to add that, but I guess it passed my mind. If you don't let the concrete foundation cure before building on it, it will literally crumble.

My point was that in total, I don't think you gained any man-hours at all, but would incur an insane cost. Running 6 cranes wouldn't necessarily demand inefficiencies (although in reality I'd expect a lot). If you assigned an area to each crane and movement zones, you could probably get away with minimal time losses, however for tying the structure together you could never get more than a level ahead of the other cranes.

Many of the parts were prefabricated.

That was part of my point. Prefab parts, but they weren't ridiculously faster than a western crew using regular methods.

There was a time when America was noted for record breaking achievements like this, Chicago towards the end of the 19th century springs to mind. They weren't too bothered back then about worker safety and the like, much like China today

The video claims there were no injuries in this project, though there's no way to tell how veracious that claim is.

I guess that's a little like saying: i jumped off a cliff into the sea and didn't get hurt, countless people do and don't get hurt. At the same time though, there's a great risk of me hitting something on the way down if it's very windy or me drowning because I landed awkwardly in the water(I've experinced this one jumping from about 10ft as a child).

If you look at this, the US actually ranks better than China in terms of 'construction permits':

http://www.doingbusiness.org/

We had an in-and-out built in Redwood City in about 30 days. I thought that was a world-class amazing feat of engineering, project management, and construction. I'm somewhat in awe of the 15-story hotel project. I wonder if the process/margins/tools they used are repeatable, or whether it made sense just as a stunt.

The volume of ignorance and bilateral racism in the youtube comments astounds.

Wait, seriously? This is youtube we're talking about.

http://youtubesunshine.com/

This reminds me of the german house build on Grand Designs that went up in a few days. Prefab is definitely quicker.

You can apply factory optimisations to prefabricate - and store materials.

This reduces dependencies, and thus delays, and also increases speed. It reduces injuries, waste, environmental impact, building disturbances for neighbours. The quality is also improved.

Make a modern factory at every site where you want to build something, or have the modern factory send prefabricated parts?

Call me in 50 years and let me know whether or not that building still stands. I could build a Facebook clone in just six days too.

On the seventh day, they rested.

On the eighth day, it falls over: http://gizmodo.com/5304233/entire-new-13+story-building-tips...

Maybe that red tape is there for a reason.

Ironically, they will probably tear it down just as fast: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/china-proudly-demolishing-b...

Now, do you want to be the first guest in this hotel? Honest?

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The Chinese have Amish, too? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_raising

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