L-R: Sky City (proposed), China; Burj Khalifa, Dubai; Abraj Al Bait Towers, Saudi Arabia.
By Evie Liu, for CNN
(CNN) — Dubai’s 828-meter Burj Khalifa has less than a year left as the world’s tallest building.
China’s projected 838-meter (2,749 feet) Sky City broke ground in Changsha in central China on July 20.
Astonishingly, the construction company behind it expects to top out in April 2014 — a build time of just 10 months.
It took five years to build the Burj Khalifa.
Fast construction claims from Broad Group, the Changsha-based construction company in charge of the build, have elicited strong reactions from China’s “netizens,” as well as experts.
“The speed is horrifying, how can that be possible?” said one user on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like service.
Another criticized the liveability of the homes within, calling the project a “giant stack of trailer homes.”
But the building would appear to herald a new age in Chinese construction, one in which tall, fast builds become common.
It’s already difficult to keep track of China’s tallest building announcements.
Why this obsession with tall buildings? And especially at a time when there are major earthquakes, rising sea levels and other catastrophes besetting our planet, how safe would this structures be?