Flatpack skyscrapers

An update as to what’s going on in China with prefab skyscrapers: Zhang Yue’s company recently completed a 57-story building in just 19 days. And they’re still planning on building a skyscraper taller than the Burj Khalifa in a matter of months.

The revolution will be modular, Zhang insists. Mini Sky City was assembled from thousands of factory-made steel modules, slotted together like Meccano.

It’s a method he says is not only fast, but also safe and cheap.

Now he wants to drop the “Mini” and use the same technique to build the world’s tallest skyscraper, Sky City.

While the current record holder, the 828m-high Burj Khalifa in Dubai, took five years to “top out”, Zhang says his proposed 220-storey “vertical city” will take only seven months — four for the foundations, and three for the tower itself.

And it will be 10m taller.

• architecture
• China
• skyscrapers
• video
• Zhang Yue