Is it standard construction policy to BUILD A FREAKING TOWER and then DIG OUT A GARAGE UNDER IT?
You would be correct ... for the U.S. Apparently they operate a bit, ah, "differently" in China. I've read stories and articles by architects who have gone to China seeking projects. They pretty much all agree that an American contractor, architect, or construction manager would just shoot himself after a week. EVERYTHING is done by manual labor. There is no critical path ... everything is important, therefore nothing is important. One architect commented that he visited a luxury high-rise office building under construction. They were still pouring concrete on the upper stories, but they had already finished out the ground floor lobby ... complete with tile and marble floors, over which they were rolling wheelbarrows full of concrete to get to the elevators to haul said concrete up to the area where it was needed.
You know all those jokes about "Chinese fire drills"?
Not jokes. That's how they build over there. Looks shiny and modern on the surface but, underneath, it's very low-tech. Manpower is far cheaper than machine power over there.
