Some buildings take years to construct, some never get completed after they begin, and some get built up in a matter of days, particularly in China. This Asian nation is the place to go for speedy construction, from constructing a 1,000-bed, 25,000-square-meter hospital in nine days in response to the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 to putting together residential rooms in only one day. The seven-story, 112-bed hotel was built in under twelve days in Zhuhai City, China. China State Construction (CSCEC) is the company in charge of this initiative. They revealed to the public the procedure they used to take this stage, which might allow future homes to be functionally completed in a matter of days after they are acquired.
The company was also testing its maximal information coefficient (MIC) technology to see how rapidly and safely it could assemble a building. They constructed the hotel leveraging a modular construction method. This is when building components, or “modules,” are prepared at a factory and assembled on-site – similar to the IKEA flat-pack of construction. Digital management was introduced to its set-up in a far more modern manner of construction than the beloved Swedish furniture company’s system. They say that their automated smart factory automates around 80% of construction activities, with the rest being practically an assembly activity. This way, the information for each component could be consulted, and if any errors were discovered, they could be traced back to their source expediently and, the fault could get fixed.
Another benefit of this technology is that it uses less energy and reduces waste, making it a considerably sustainable construction process. According to a recent UK government analysis, modular construction uses 20 to 30 percent less energy than traditional building methods. However, CSCEC estimates that they have consumed the energy for more than 50%. They also claim that compared to typical construction procedures, material waste was reduced by a fifth and construction waste by a remarkable 70%.
To add to the hotel’s environmental claims, it’s also recyclable: CSCEC claims that over 90% of the components are reusable because they can be disassembled rather than demolished. Most of the construction happens inside the factory, and as the actual on-site work period is cut down, they keep noise pollution under control. The hotel is an enormous success for CSCEC’s maximal information coefficient (MIC) technology, with the preliminary foundational concrete taking 72 hours to pour and the entire building getting completed in 12 days.
Written by: Mishaal Muzaffar
Reporter: Imaaz Nadeem
English
Chinese (Simplified)
French
German
Italian
Russian