Mankind has come a long way over the centuries, with structures evolving from simple one-room huts, to castles, all the way up to state of the art skyscrapers in bustling metropolises all over the world. The most amazing feats of architectural achievement used to take years or even decades to complete, like Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany, which took 24 years, or Dracula’s Castle (officially known as Bran Castle) in Transylvania, which required nearly a century to complete. The speed with which today’s enormous structures are built is a testament to how far we’ve come from both a technological and engineering point of view. Below we take a look at ten structures that were completed in record time.
- 10 Storey High-rise in 48 hours
In Mohali India, a team of over 200 people built a 10 storey building in just under 48 hours, thereby qualifying the feat as the fastest completed building in the country. The red and grey facade building, Instacon, stood tall on an industrial plot in Mohali, 10 km from Chandigarh on Saturday, two days after Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal had laid its foundation stone. Entrepreneur Harpal Singh, who heads the Rs1,000-crore infrastructure company, had promised that the 10-storey building would be completed within 48 hours.
2. T30 Hotel Tower and the Ark Hotel, Changsha, China
Broad Sustainable Building, a company in China that uses pre-fabrication techniques in its construction, built the 30-story T30 Tower Hotel in only 15 days in central China in 2011. The construction rate was two stories per day. The 183,000 square foot hotel was built to withstand a magnitude 9 earthquake. It was also fitted with air-quality monitors in every room and thermal insulation that made it energy efficient. Earlier the company had constructed the Ark Hotel in the same city using the same techniques. They completed the structural construction of the building in 48 hours and completely finished the 15-story building in only six days. No workers were injured during the quick construction of either project.
3. Mini Sky City, Changsha, China
The Broad Sustainable Building company completed an even taller building in 2015. They built the 57-story, Mini Sky City, in only 19 days. That is a construction rate of 3-stories per day. The construction had to be broken up in two halves due to bad weather. 2,736 modules had been fabricated before construction began to speed up the process. The building has 800 apartments and office space for 4,000 people.
With a long list of astonishing ancient structures, no wonder China has been breaking records one after the other in constructing modern buildings.
4. Fastest House Ever Built, Shelby County, Alabama
In December 2002, a house was built by Habitat for Humanity in Shelby County, Alabama in 3 hours, 26 minutes, and 34 seconds. They beat the previous record that was set in New Zealand of 3 hours, 44 minutes, and 59 seconds. The three bedroom, two bath home was constructed for a single mother who was a nursing technician.
5. Heijmans ONE : 1 day house
This tiny house has been created by the Dutch construction-services company Heijmans as part of an affordable housing project. The project aims to provide young people with rental housing within bustling, high-profile cities like Amsterdam. Called the Heijmans ONE, the tiny house serves as a starter home for $860 a month. It comes fully equipped and is a portable structure, meaning it can be placed wherever your city permits. Heijmans hopes that they will also be placed in less used, or forgotten urban areas to help stimulate development and economic growth.
6. Homeshell: London, England
The first Homeshell has been constructed in the Royal Academy’s Annenberg Courtyard, to coincide with the exhibition Richard Rogers RA: Inside Out, but also to provoke debate about how architectural and construction innovation together might help us meet people’s housing needs. This three-and-half-storey building arrived as flat-pack panels on one truck and took only 24 hours to assemble on site. Homeshell is constructed using a building system called Insulshell, (developed by Sheffield Insulations Group (SIG) and Coxbench). This system is so flexible that it can be used for many building types from homes, apartments and schools to factories and health centres.
7. Ark Floating Hotel in China
Ark Hotel – a futuristic see-through bubble Ark Hotel that can be adapted to suit both land and water is being billed as a “self-contained oasis”.The Ark Hotel (wrong: Arc Hotel) project was designed by Russian firm Remistudio with the assistance of the International Union of Architects program Architecture for Disasters Relief. The dome-shaped Ark Hotel is constructed with wooden arches, steel cables and a self-cleaning plastic layer instead of glass.The slinky-like Ark Hotel can be adapted to suit both land and water. It is built to stay afloat in the event of floods or rising seas. The 14,000 square metre shell-like construction of arches and cables distributes the weight evenly, meaning it can withstand earthquakes. Daylight is filtered through to internal rooms due to the hotels see-through structure, reducing the need for lighting. A team of 200 workers erected the 15 story internal structure in just 46.5 hours! External construction took another 90 hours, for a total of less than 6 days
8. 3-D printed houses, China
A company in China used giant 3D printers to make 10 full-sized, detached single-storey houses in a day. A private firm, WinSun, used four 10m x 6.6m printers to spray a mixture of cement and construction waste to build the walls, layer by layer. The cheap materials used during the printing process and the lack of manual labour means that each house can be printed for under $5,000. If you want to talk about something more suitable for long-term living, a 3D printed house can be finished in as little as 24 hours.
9. Archiblox, Melbourne
Australian company ArchiBlox constructed the world’s first carbon positive prefabricated house. Representing a new movement in ArchiBlox houses, the carbon positive house provides the option for a more environmentally-conscious design, through both reducing embodied energy that accompanies new-home construction and maintaining positive-energy production. The groundbreaking product line began its first installation on February 8 at Melbourne’s City Square.The installation can be built in 12 to 20 weeks depending on design.
10. Dom’Up TreeHouse
Dom’Up is an innovative treehouse that draws inspiration from tree camping and traditional treehouse structure. Dutch arboriculturist Bruno de Grunne and architect Nicolas d’Ursel from Trees and People invented this new suspension style cabin. The innovative treehouse draws inspiration from tree camping and traditional treehouse structures. The end result is a tree shelter that’s reported easy to install and leaves no trace or impact on its surrounding environment and trees. The whole shelter can be setup in as little as few hours.
