China is at it again. When they’re not building war-machines, churning out electronics and manufacturing cars at the speed of light, they’re constructing 30-storey hotels in the time it usually takes to get your call answered by Telkom customer service.

Just off the banks of the Dongting Lake in China’s Hunan Province, The Broad Group has constructed a 30-storey, 17,000m² hotel tower – in 360 hours. That’s only 15 days. Just think about that for a second and then think about the cranes you see every day that live on the same construction site for months. Two weeks is all it took for these guys to build an entire hotel, finishes included, from the ground up.

Despite being completed so quickly, the building boasts some impressive stats: it can withstand magnitude 9 earthquakes, is claimed to be five times more energy efficient than other buildings of similar shape and size, both in terms of materials used, and in the energy required to maintain and run the building. It also features 15cm thick glass cladding on all sides, which provides insulation And its three-stage air-purifying system means air inside the hotel is 20 times cleaner than air on the outside.

As you’ll see in the video, large parts of the building were constructed off-site so that when the time came they could all just be stacked together like Lego blocks. Particularly impressive was that the hotel was completely ready for customers as soon as construction finished, beds were installed and made up, and water was ready at the turn of a tap.

This isn’t the first time The Broad Group have broken construction records. Early last year it built an entire residential block in just six days.

[Source: The Daily, Construction Week Online, YouTube]