Preparedness Prevents Peril: Liuzhou's 'Xiaotangshan' Hospital Completed – A Time-Lapse Record of the Whole Process

I’m Liang Weibin, a freelance photographer, founder of Image Village, and a contracted photographer for 8KRAW, with a focus on time-lapse, aerial, and VR panoramic photography. For this project, I became the time-lapse photographer for Liuzhou’s version of the ‘Xiaotangshan’ hospital.

Ever since the novel coronavirus outbreak, I’ve been following all sorts of pandemic-related news every day, though I rarely repost or comment on it.

It wasn’t until January 24th that I saw a post online about construction workers for Wuhan’s ‘Xiaotangshan’ hospital eating their New Year’s Eve dinner by the roadside. I shared it and commented:

‘I suggest that every city should prepare emergency land for such hospitals in advance. When not needed, it could serve as a public square for residents’ leisure, and when necessary, just bring in the materials and turn it into a hospital within two to three days. Even all new city squares in the future should be designed with the capability to quickly transform into emergency shelters.’

To my surprise, to be ‘prepared for any contingency,’ Liuzhou’s own ‘Xiaotangshan’ hospital – the temporary negative-pressure ward at Guangxi Longtan Hospital – soon began construction and was officially put into use yesterday (February 25th).

Early construction phase | Photo by Liang Weibin

The project officially broke ground on February 9th, but site leveling and preparations had actually started as early as February 3rd. I learned about this on February 4th, and after communicating with the construction team, I decided to use the time-lapse photography I’m good at. Starting from February 4th, I filmed the entire building process to capture that indomitable spirit of people bravely fighting the pandemic.

Round-the-clock construction, 24 hours a day | Photo by Liang Weibin

The early days were filled with rain, posing a big challenge for the builders and making shooting quite difficult, too.

After a night of heavy rain, a dreamy advection fog appeared over the site | Photo by Liang Weibin

The project borrowed designs from other existing hospitals while continuously optimizing the plans and construction methods based on actual site conditions.

Container wards begin to take shape | Photo by Liang Weibin

Although the scale and bed count are much smaller than Wuhan’s Leishenshan and Huoshenshan hospitals, it had to be built according to the standards for infectious disease hospitals, and the whole process was anything but simple. Especially during the Chinese New Year, right at the peak of the outbreak, many suppliers were closed, and coordinating materials required overcoming huge difficulties.

Installing the corrugated steel roof on the wards | Photo by Liang Weibin

Word has it that when certain materials were scarce, the construction team simply dismantled things they had already installed at other worksites and brought them over. For crucial components on backorder, they even sent people to drive directly to factories in other cities and wait until the items were ready. These were some seriously hardcore approaches, and I can’t help but give a big thumbs-up to Fifth Construction Group and all the other builders.

Obstacles are meant to be overcome! With crews working in shifts 24/7 for two solid weeks, the project was smoothly completed on February 23rd, passed inspection and handover on the 24th, and officially opened on the 25th!

As a photographer devoted to time-lapse, I captured the entire process through my lens:

Time-lapse of the temporary negative-pressure ward at Guangxi Longtan Hospital

Filming & editing: Liang Weibin

Construction authority: Liuzhou Municipal Government | Guangxi Longtan Hospital

Contractor: Guangxi Construction Engineering Group Fifth Construction Engineering Co., Ltd.

Design firm: Guangxi Hualan Design Group Co., Ltd.

Project scale: 3,997 square meters, 100 beds

Participating units: Fifth Construction’s No.1 Branch, No.3 Branch, No.5 Branch, Installation Engineering Branch, Metal Structure Branch; Dingxin Labor Service Company; Guanglong Technology Company; Guangxi Jianliu Consulting Company; Liuzhou Construction Investment Company, and nearly a thousand other builders.