Juliette Jiang: "We can build three eleven-storey buildings a day"

The Chinese company BROAD Group gained worldwide fame by selling a six-storey building at the Shanghai EXPO in just one day, a 15-storey building in a week (New Ark Hotel), a 30-storey building in 15 days (T30 Hotel) and a 57-storey Mini Sky City in 19 days. And recently, the Garden Home No 11-storey residential building project won the Global Annual Modular Construction Conference in the "Apartment Buildings over 25,000 square Feet" category, beating 141 candidates. This is the first time a Chinese company has received such an award. 

In October 2022, Juliette Jiang, Senior Vice President of BROAD Group, will become a speaker at the International Construction Forum and the TechnoBuild 100+ Exhibition, which will be held in Yekaterinburg. In an interview, she explained how the company manages to build buildings so quickly and why experts are so confident in their quality.

– Tell us more about the Garden Home No. What did the jury members see so special about him? 

– We built Garden Home No in just 28 hours and 46 minutes. It is 100% factory made. We got the first place, firstly, for a good architectural design. Secondly, because of the innovations that we have brought to construction. We have paid great attention to energy conservation, ensuring that the air quality is at the highest level, comfort and, of course, sustainability. We used 90% fewer air conditioners in the building and, consequently, reduced operating costs by 90%. Only 10% of the instruments we used were classical. The building is made of stainless steel, which means it will last at least a thousand years.

Is this building more innovative than your previous projects? 

– Of course! The first difference is in the materials we use. As I said, this is stainless steel, which will last 1,000 years, instead of ordinary steel, which will last only 50 years. That is, an improvement of 20 times. We also used a new innovative material that we created ourselves. It's called bikor. It is a lightweight and reliable material, stable. We use something with stone wool in order to create additional sound and thermal insulation. In addition to the fact that this material can be used in buildings, it can also be used in ships, mechanical engineering, and aircraft construction, meaning its field of application is quite wide.

The second innovation is that we used two modules. The first one is indoor, 12 meters long and almost five meters wide. The second is a stairwell module, just over 12 meters long and almost three meters wide. Each module weighed 11 tons, and conveniently, they folded.

fits the size of a standard container. But at the same time, they are like containers themselves, they do not need additional containers for transportation, so you can transport these modules both on trucks and on other vehicles around the world. 

And we're moving on to the third innovation. All modules are made in the factory, there is no need for welding, they are very easy to work with. Previously, welding was necessary, and therefore it was not so easy to transport them. Now we can transport them to all markets, even to small countries, by any means available.

– 28 hours is only the assembly of the building, and how long does the preliminary preparation take? 

– In the context of this building, we are talking about 2021, then it took us half a month or a month. The process was not fully automated. Now the work has been adjusted, and we can build 10,000 square meters per day. That is, that house was three thousand square meters, today we can build at least three such buildings a day.

– How did you come up with the idea to create technologies that will allow you to build houses so quickly?

– In 2008, an earthquake occurred in China, which caused a lot of losses: people died, houses collapsed. That's when we started thinking about the importance of building safety – that's the first factor. 

The second factor is that buildings account for half of the world's total energy consumption, and we wanted to reduce the percentage of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere and get to zero. In 2008, there were 15 old buildings next to the main office of our company, which occupied an area of 100 hectares. We have made 15 energy efficient buildings out of them. They applied their own technologies, laid thick stone wool for insulation there, adjusted internal heating processes, applied solar technologies outside, installed three-layer windows instead of double-layer ones, installed their own devices for air production instead of traditional air conditioners. And, you know, before we started working, these buildings consumed 8,000 kilowatts of energy. We have reduced this level by 80%. In less than three years, our work has paid off. And we thought: why not build buildings that are initially energy efficient?

– How did you assemble a team that comes up with all these innovations? Do you have many foreigners?

– We have a thousand employees, and we outsource all over China. Many of our experts, of course, studied abroad. The main person in this whole process is the founder of our company. He created the BROAD Group with his brother, starting with just $3,000. We celebrated our 34th anniversary on June 5th. And June 5 is World Environment Day. In other words, the BROAD Group was originally created with a mission to take care of the environment, conserve energy and save lives.

– During these 34 years, which achievement are you most proud of?

– I am the founder of our company's international business and started working 24 years ago. For the first 10 years, while I was away, the company focused only on the Chinese market, and now we work with more than 80 countries.

One of our advantages is that we use non-electric indoor air conditioning, solutions that run on gas, solar energy and other natural energy sources for heating and cooling buildings. This allows us to increase energy efficiency by 200% and reduce CO2 emissions by 80%. By the way, we have sold many items to Russia, and our solutions are available at airports in Madrid, Los Angeles, and Melbourne, and our air conditioning solutions are used all over the world.

By reducing the level of energy consumption, we are to some extent harming our own business. But it's better for the environment and the world, so it's worth it. In 34 years, the company has received 1,466 patents – these are original technologies that came from here, from China, from Chinese people, and this shows in some way our desire to solve world problems with wisdom.

– Returning to the issue of speed. If they tell you that a building that was built so quickly cannot be of good quality, what do you say to them?

– You know, my answer to this is that the numbers speak better, because as far as reducing energy consumption and comfort levels are concerned, all the indicators are recorded. Our buildings consume only 1/10 of the energy, unlike conventional buildings. They live 1,000 years instead of 100 years.

Yes, our buildings are quite simple in shape, but the configurations can be made completely different. In fact, we are very proud of this paradox of quality and speed. We can vouch for everything because we use only our own products and solutions. Even if we talk about the water in the houses, we can guarantee that if you turn on the hot water, it will be hot in five seconds. The exterior walls of the building are 22 cm thick, the windows are three–layer and four-layer, the sun protection is at the highest level, the internal thermal insulation - we have thought of everything.

And I would like to add one more thing. Any of our buildings can be moved somewhere, even after construction, they can be reused - this is a very big difference from concrete buildings, because they cannot be reused. And, remembering the earthquake situation, unlike a concrete building, no one will die if our building is affected. It can deform, but it won't fall off, because it's stainless steel, it has a 20% elongation rate, and concrete has a 0% elongation rate, so it's much safer. In addition, there is no construction debris, it is safe for the environment, and it is also safe for the country.

The last thing in this context: buying a house in our building, you can be sure that it will be passed down from generation to generation for many years. 

– Have you ever received requests for the construction of houses from Russia?

– Yes, we have received a lot of requests. In fact, these projects can help Russia a lot, there are all the conditions for our buildings here. We all know that it's cold here, and our buildings have very good thermal insulation. But beyond that, I want to add that global warming is a big problem right now, and I believe that every country should do its part to achieve carbon-neutral emissions.

We are currently looking for partners in Russia, and we would like to build one or two buildings as a test. Then, perhaps, we can even set up a local factory in Russia to create more jobs and make a positive contribution to the local economy. This is exactly how we want to do business, especially since Russia is our long–time friend.