Hello Everyone:
Diagram of the next tallest buildings theatlanticcities.com |
Rendering of Sky City, Changsha, China dailymail.co.uk |
Sky City comparative diagram forum.skyscrapers.com |
Tallest Buildings in the world worldofachi.com |
Wuhan, which is the size of Houston, Texas, is putting up two buildings destined to be taller than the Willis Tower and Tianjin, which is the size of metropolitan Chicago, is building three according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a nonprofit which follows high rise bragging rights. I think at some level, the Chinese believe that building these super tall buildings is a sign of progress and modernity. They believe that by doing so, it puts them, at some level, on equal footing with the West. However, this is strictly my thinking on the subject. What is troubling to me about the mania to build extremely tall buildings around the world, is first, what and whose needs is it meeting and second, the issue of human safety and occupation.
Ambitious local officials and state-owned companies and banks are behind most of these projects, which begs the consideration that there is a definite political agenda involved. This raises concerns that the taxpayers will eventually pay the bill if the project proves to be uneconomical. According to Hong Kong University real estate professor Chau Kwong Wing, "If you let the market decide, I don't think a lot of these tall buildings would proceed." Interesting observation. Even more interesting is that despite public concerns, there's no indication to suggest that any of the super tall buildings under construction have been canceled by the Beijing regulators, duly noted by Prof. Chau and Mr. Zhang.
Sky City Space Blocks Plan nextbigfuture.com |
In an August 7 interview interview, Mr. Zhang said that he already had all the required approvals to proceed and noted that it was common in China to keep working while waiting for further approval. Sounds like Mr. Zhang is being a tad evasive to me. If built according to plan, Sky City would only be ten meters (33 feet) taller than the 2,722 Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which has held the record for world's tallest building since 2010. Crammed into Sky City would be thirty-nine more floors into its height then the Dubai building, partially because Sky City would mainly be apartments, which do not require hollow spaces for wiring and HVAC, like offices. Heating and ventilation shafts, electrical wiring, and indoor floor tiles would be built into the modules. The bottom fifteen floors would incorporates offices, a school for kindergarten through eighth grade, and clinics. According to a schematic drawing there would be a restaurant and coffee shop at the apex. While the emphasis on residential units reflects the real estate boom in China-there are those within and without the country that refer to it as a bubble-as the government has recently ordered state-owned banks to lend more, in response to a weaker economy. To me this suggests that the uptick in lending activity could give way to dubious mortgage lending practices, like those of the recent past. This could result in a global financial melt-down even greater than the one in 2008.
While Mr. Zhang insisted in the August 7 interview that the local Changsha government is not financing the project, he did state that the Broad Group remains the official owner of the building and he recently negotiated deals for the sale of almost the entire building to several investment companies. Mr. Zhang said that not all of the deals have gone through and declined to state if the delay could affect his financing. Something does not smell right here. He further declined to identify buyers, except to say they were from the private sector and using their own money instead of relying on bank loans. A highly unusual situation in China where typical real estate developments depend on low-rate loans from politically connected companies and obtained by individuals from state-owned banks.
Mr. Zhang seems quite confident that Sky City will be a rousing success. For his sake, I hope he's right. As things stand now, the whole project seems to be a house of cards. This whole competition to build taller is very troubling because of the compromises in human health and safety, which trumps everything. Further, from a profitability point of view, the People's Daily noted that the Empire State Building, completed in 1931 took almost twenty years to fill. This poses the question of how will Sky City and other extremely tall buildings return a profit? The you have to ask yourself, when will this all end? When we reach the moon? Maybe?
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