Just as the weekend took off, so did the world's next tallest skyscraper. In China's 25th biggest city, Changsha, Hunan, ground has ambitiously been broken. In just the next seven months, Broad Sustainable Construction plans to erect its Sky City, a 220-story, 838 meter (2,749 feet) megatower.Leaving Dubai's Burj Khalifa tower (829 meters or 2,722 feet) in second place by only nine meters, Sky City will more than triple its predecessor's floor space. The project is basically life-size Legos: A team of 19,000 workers will make modular pieces off-site for four months and then assemble them for the remaining three.Once completed, 30,000 people will live and work fully-functional lives with little reason to ever leave. Why leave, when all one needs is the sky?Additionally, China's rate of natural increase is well below replacement at 0.5 percent. The country is currently projected to begin shrinking in the next decade, and is projected to be smaller in 2050 than it is today; a decrease of about 40 million people.None of this is to say China, and Changsha's 7 million residents, couldn't use an über-efficient way of living, but it's hard to ignore the irony of trying to top Dubai—which is a city of abandoned skyscrapers.I heard architect, Jeanne Gang, speak about concepts for a module-constructed neighborhood, last summer. The takeaway had little to do with high-speed competitive building contests, but more-so to do with dynamic response to real needs. Her presentation looked like a slick, 21st-century trailer park. As families grew and more people moved in or out, the modules could adapt into duplexes, single-family homes, or make way for expanding business modules. I'd love to see it in action.Within a few months, if a massive team of construction workers begin to hoist its Legos into the Changsha sky, I may have to see that happen as well. If their mission is to save the world by building its tallest skyscraper, then someone ought to try holding them accountable. If you're setting bets, Sky City has until February 19, 2014, to become realized.@danstuckey
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