It might look like any of China's countless building sites, but in little over a week, a site in China's central Hunan province has become a completed, three-story, low-carbon canteen building that would take at least a year to build using traditional construction methods.
Originally the main structure was slated to be up in 24 hours, but heavy rain, a delivery problem and a national holiday forced construction way over schedule, to nine days.
The company behind it, Broad Sustainable Building (BSB), has made a mark by constructing environmentally-friendly "instant buildings" at lightning speed, using an innovative system of prefabricated modules that slot together like flat-pack furniture.
Towering cranes lowered four-by-15 metre modules onto steel supports, where they slotted in neatly and were fastened tight by an army of workers working in shifts through the night to get it done.
In December, the company erected a 30-storey hotel in only 15 days, but Zhang has much bigger plans: by the end of this year, he wants to build a 220-storey building - potentially the world's tallest -- in just four months, using the same modular system and 2,000 workers.
The "instant buildings" are the vision of Zhang Yue, the billionaire founder and chairman of Broad Group, who made his fortune selling low energy air-conditioning units.
