Tunnelling expert Professor Wang Mengshu of Beijing Jiaotong University, who is also a member of the prestigious Chinese Academy of Engineering, said he saw too much ambition and too little practicality in the land ministry’s plan ….

Professor Feng Zhiming, with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, said pumping water underground was too costly for most mainland cities ….

Jiang [Mingjing, who teaches underground engineering at Tongji University in Shanghai] said Beijing’s most urgent task was not to stop land subsistence, but to set up a network to monitor sensitive areas and buildings.

“A city may take centuries to sink, but a skyscraper can collapse overnight,” he said. “We must have some focus, or we will be lost.”

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Post tags: cities, high-speed rail, skyscrapers, south-to-north water diversion project, Three Gorges Dam, water crisis, water shortage
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An incongruous new sight has risen up in the countryside of eastern China: a skyscraper taller than any building in London or Tokyo, topped by what looks very much like a giant, golden disco ball. The 328-metre supertower, which juts out of the Jiangsu plains like a trophy on an empty shelf, will be opened on Saturday by the village of Huaxi, a communist model community with a registered population of just 2,000 “farmers”.

Having been built up to the heavens during a period of global economic collapse, the megatower will be heralded as the latest symbol of China’s extraordinary economic expansion. But this bizarre new addition to the landscape also speaks volumes about the land pressures, environmental stress, inequality and rash investment that threaten the country’s long-term growth.

See also earlier posts on Huaxi, and The Los Angeles Times’ recent inspection of projects such as a Pentagon-dwarfing local government office and the world’s tallest mechanical clock tower, via CDT.

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Post tags: construction project, economic development, huaxi, Jiangsu, skyscrapers, vanity projects
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“Poor quality, improper design or installation or maintenance of the glass door and the scorching weather are all possible causes for the incident,” said Lu Jinlong of the Shanghai Research Institute of Building Sciences.

Similar glass “explosions” or glass “bombs” falling off sides of high-rises have occurred frequently in the city during the past weeks, prompting concerns about the glass materials’ safety. A piece of glass on the 38th floor in the Shanghai International Finance Center broke into pieces on Wednesday ….

Meanwhile, a piece of glass in the One Lujiazui office tower broke on Monday, two months after a glass-shattering incident there damaged dozens of cars.

A glass platform barrier in Metro Line 10 suddenly exploded on Tuesday. An identical shield also shattered in Metro Line 11 on July 14.

And from Global Times on Friday:

Skyscraper owners and managers held the prime responsibility for the glass in their glass buildings, Deputy Mayor Shen Jun announced at a press conference on Wednesday.

“The city government must step up its efforts to prevent such accidents to minimize economic losses as well as injuries to residents,” he also said ….

The rate of exploding glass was about two windows in a 1,000, according to Fang, “too high odds to be ignored” for a metropolis like Shanghai ….

“The country’s technical standard does not meet that of the World Trade Organization,” Lu [Jinlong, also quoted by the Shanghai Daily] said.

“Although that does not necessarily mean that the glass walls are of poorer quality than those built by other more developed countries, Shanghai’s skyscrapers need more efficient and thorough safety checks to examine the glass walls’ quality.”

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Post tags: accidents, buildings, construction, safety, Shanghai, skyscrapers, world trade organization
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The most fascinating aspect of the current exhibit on Shanghai, however, is the show’s framing thesis. China Prophecy: Shanghai is the final show in the three-part exhibition entitled ‘Future City: 20/21,’ which began with the show ‘New York Modern,’ and also included an exhibit and symposium on ‘Vertical Cities: Hong Kong.’

Presented in this way, ‘China Prophecy’ invites viewers to compare the near future of Shanghai with the past futurism of New York. This collision of time and space is suggested right at the start of the exhibition through twin blow-ups of Google maps, which illustrate the uncanny mirroring of Lujiazui and lower Manhattan, with their almost identical waterfronts, clusters of skyscrapers, and intense urban density.

As a city of skyscrapers, Shanghai has echoed Manhattan from the start. The Park Hotel, the city’s tallest tower until 1983, was built only after Shanghai’s great architect Laszlo Hudec returned from America. Hudec’s design for the Park Hotel was based on his sketches of Raymond Hood’s Radiator Building, which is located on West 40th Street, Manhattan.

The museum has an excellent website which includes a virtual walkthrough of the exhibit.

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Post tags: architecture, cities, new york city, Shanghai, skyscrapers
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The country is in the middle of the greatest building boom in human history. Six of the world’s 10 tallest buildings completed last year were in China, including the 492-metre-tall Shanghai World Financial Centre. Even taller structures are on their way – such as the Shanghai Centre, 632 metres, and at 600 metres, the Goldin Finance 117 in Tianjin.

But among the giants there is one that could hold out hope for a low-carbon future. The Pearl River Tower, now being erected in Guangzhou, the provincial capital of Guangdong province, is being billed as the most energy efficient superskyscraper ever built.

With wind turbines, solar panels, ­sun-shields, smart lighting, water-cooled ceilings and state-of-the-art insulation, the 310-metre tower is designed to use half the energy of most buildings of its size and set a new global benchmark for self-sufficiency among the planet’s high rises.

Engineers say the tower could even be enhanced to create surplus electricity if the local power firm relaxes its monopoly over energy generation.

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Post tags: construction, green building, Guangzhou, skyscrapers, sustainable development
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China’s economy is booming like never before and its social fabric is being ripped apart and knit together in novel ways. State-of-the-art sports stadiums, a renovated airport terminal, and a new financial district have been built or are under construction in pre-Olympic Beijing, where there’s even been talk of seeding rain clouds to limit pollution.

And, not to be outdone by its rival to the north, Shanghai is preparing to host the 2010 World Expo, an event that will have decidedly twenty-first-century elements. Upon arrival, visitors will be rocketed from airport to WiFi-wired exhibition halls via magnetic-levitation trains that run through a city that now has more skyscrapers than Manhattan. [Full Text]

[Image source: dissentmagazine.org]

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Post tags: 2010 World Expo, Beijing, Shanghai, skyscrapers
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Post tags: Chongqing, photos, Shenzhen, skyscrapers
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Mr. Mori, who has a Trump-like three dozen or so buildings in Tokyo that bear his name, would offer Shanghai the world’s tallest building, at 1,614 feet. For extra effect the roof of his new building would be formed by a giant enclosed circle that would house specially outfitted cars, a sort of Ferris wheel at the top of the world.

If skyscrapers can be said to have journeys, what has happened since has been one long, strange trip indeed. These days workers are racing to complete the 101-floor building on schedule, mounting skyward floor by floor toward a hitherto unaccustomed view that looks down on the neighboring landmarks. [Full text]

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Post tags: architecture, Shanghai, skyscrapers
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From Xinhua Online:

For some Chinese, skyscrapers are seen as symbols of urban modernity and economic dynamism.

It partially explains why many domestic cities seem to regard high-rises that dot their skylines as their claim to fame, and as a backdrop to their having arrived as truly metropolitan.

Currently, Shanghai, China’s business hub, has more than 4,000 buildings taller than 16 storeys, which is reportedly the largest high-rise cluster anywhere on the planet. The city hosts the Chinese mainland’s highest building, the 420-metre Shanghai Jinmao Tower.

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Post tags: architecture, skyscrapers
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