On New Year’s Day 2012, BROAD Sustainable Buildings Co. Ltd (BSB) released a time-lapse video on YouTube showing how it built a 30-storey hotel in just 360 hours (15 days). http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=Hdpf-MQM9vY That video has since been viewed over 5.8 million times. People were amazed at the speed of this accomplishment; however Zhang Yue, Chairman & CEO of BROAD Group of which BSB is a subsidiary, however, is more focused on the building’s sustainability credentials. Third party tests conclude that it can withstand an earthquake of magnitude 9 on the Richter scale; heating, cooling and lighting the building uses only 20% of the energy consumed by a traditional hotel; its internal air is 20 times purer than the atmosphere outside; it costs between 10% and 30% less to build compared with conventional methods, using about 30% less steel and 85% less concrete. It was also built without accident of any kind and with less than 1% of the construction waste discarded in traditional methods. All of the materials used in the building are free of toxic materials such as formaldehyde, lead, or asbestos and are mostly recyclable.
In early 2014 BSB started production of an 88-storey building using similar technologies. BSB now plans to build its first “Sky City” a 202- floor building that at 838 metres would be the world’s tallest. Sky City aims to provide housing for over 30,000 residents as well as 300,000 m2 as for offices, schools, hospitals, entertainment and sports venues, 8,000 m2 of open “sky gardens”, and 86,400 m2 of vertical organic farms. Since 2008, for the first time in history, more than half of the world’s population lives in towns and cities and the UN estimates that by 2030 the urban population will swell to almost 5 billion. Zhang Yue views the sky city approach using BSB technologies as the key to urban sustainability in the future reducing city sprawl, proliferation of vast parking lots, and the need for commuter transport. He believes that we have already most of the technologies necessary to enable sustainable and happy living at our disposal if only we are willing to deploy them. Others question this optimism and believe we need to look for other ways to put sustainability into action.
