To The Moon?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/28/realestate/commercial/across-china-skyscrapers-brush-the-heavens.html?_r=0&adxnnl=17smid=tw=nytimes&partner=rss&emc=rs...

Hello Everyone:

Diagram of the next tallest buildings
theatlanticcities.com

Today we're back to the subject of "how high is high?"  Specifically, I'd like to look at the contradiction that is the People's Republic of China.  The economy is slowing down, yet buildings keep going up, for now.  China is the site of sixty of the world's one hundred tallest buildings currently under construction. In the fray is the city of Changsha, the capital of the Hunan province.  According to New York Times reporter Keith Bradsher's article, "Across China, Skyscrapers Brush the Heavens," the upward bound aspirations of the city is being met with a feeling of incredulity and hostility.  The project in question is the 202-story Sky City, which is supposed to be assembled and in place in four months.  Why the negative feelings?  Lets find out.

Rendering of Sky City, Changsha, China
dailymail.co.uk

The Broad Group, a building manufacturer based in Changsha, is planning to put the world's tallest building by winter and in record time.  Workers began digging the  foundation on July 20, 2013.  The Sky City project will be built from factory-made steel modules and concrete early next in the outskirts of the city and trucked to the site.  While it wouldn't be the first building made from pre-fabricated parts, what is troubling to the Chinese is whether or not civic leaders have too far in their manic reach for the skies.  As I said in a previous post on the subject of super tall buildings, the need to go higher and higher isn't a contemporary phenomena.  Mr. Bradsher cites a quote from an editorial in the People's Daily newspaper, the official media outlet for the Communist party, "The vanity of some local government officials has determined the skylines of the cities."  Further, the tycoon behind the project has ordered a break in the work while he awaits further approval from regulators in Beijing. Zhang Yue, the chairman of the Broad Group blames the slow down in the work on all the concern in the media and online.

Sky City comparative diagram
forum.skyscrapers.com

While Mr. Zhang vows to finish the project in Jun or July of next year, instead of the original completion date in April, you have to ask yourself, at what point does this exercise in how high is high more about ego than anything else?  If you look at the entire history of tall buildings, from the Babylonian ziggurats to the Gothic cathedrals and modern skyscrapers, it's always been about who can have the tallest building.  You have to keep in mind that this competitiveness seriously jeopardizes human health and safety.  This actually brings to mind the Four Gorges Dam the Chinese built a few years ago.  I remember sitting in an Asian studies class watching a film on the subject and listening to one Chinese official claim that they didn't need to test the material strength and safety, it was fine.  That's scary when you think about.  In the case of Sky City,  Mr. Zhang cagily avoids identifying the Beijing official who called for the break but added that he has not be asked to make any design changes.  Scary.

Tallest Buildings in the world
worldofachi.com

David Scott, a well-known structural engineer in London who has expertise in extremely tall buildings, remarked that regulatory issues are a periodic problem but usually can be overcome.  I suppose that's meant to sound encouraging.  In the meantime, Changsha officials have transferred ownership of the land for Sky City to the Broad Group and have begun laying plumbing and electrical lines while they await "final approval" from officials in Beijing.  The plans for the project call for a stack of long skinny rectangles that taper back into a narrow top.  Keith Bradsher likened it to a tall narrow wedding cake with passing resemblance to the 110-story Willis Tower (a.k.a The Sears Tower) in Chicago, Illinois. The Willis Tower was the world's tallest building until 1998, now it's being "dwarfed" by even taller exercises in builder ego.  To put this in proper context, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Chongqing all have populations similar to that of New York City and are currently finishing buildings that will be taller than the Chicago tower.

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

Sky City is quite an ambitious project and has become the lightening rod for criticism of this "how high is high" trend.  Rightly, the Chinese media have quite open regarding their skepticism about the project, question its safety and construction speed as well as the validity of relying on pre-fab parts.  I can't help but think that sixty some odd years ago, this kind of open criticism of a government backed project would not have been possible.  Times have changed indeed.  Nevertheless, the work moves forward.  Bulldozers have already cut through slabs of earth and six drilling rigs have bored drainage holes.

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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