Chinese officials have celebrated breaking ground on what will be the world’s biggest residential tower, Sky City, motherboard.com reports.

As reported in May, plans were approved for the 200-storey tower, which will be located in Changsta in the Hunan province of China. Comprising pre-fabricated modules, the 838 metre structure has been designed to solve increasing housing and land shortages by reportedly housing 30,000 people.

Image source

Ambitious plans to build the tower in just seven months

Ground was broken over the weekend, metaphorically firing the starter pistol on developer Broad Sustainable Construction’s (BSC’s) ambitious plans to build the tower in just seven months.

The ceremony was not entirely successful; while some hailed it a ‘revolutionary work of prefabricated urban landscape’, others had serious safety concerns, scmp.com writes.

The Sky City concept significantly reduces the per capita use of land

BSC has apparently remained ‘tight-lipped’ about the building, maintaining that the underlying skyscraper architecture was a ‘trade secret’ but that it had passed the requisite wind and earthquake tests.

Yin Zhi, architecture professor at Tsinghua University and government advisor on urban planning, expressed his concerns. He believes that a prefab tower was ‘insane’, asking what provisions had been made in case of a fire.

“This is strange,” he said, “Buildings on such a scale always welcome peers to inspect the structure. But most people in the architecture community know nothing about this project.”

Image source

The other worry is whether people used to ‘horizontal living’ would want to swap it for a vertical city in the sky. Only time will tell.

Author: Elizabeth Smythe    Date Written: 24 July 2013