China goes big with building of skyscrapers

BEIJING — In Chicago today, visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao will see a city famed as the birthplace of the skyscraper, for decades the towering symbol of U.S. economic ambition and power. These days, China has taken over as the skyscraper's home.

If the fast-rising nation continues its current rapid pace of urbanization, China could build a new Chicago every year until 2030 — more than 1,500 new buildings that are over 30 stories high — wrote Jonathan Woetzel, a director at consultants McKinsey & Co. in Shanghai, in a January report "China's cities in the sky."

China is building 44% of the 50 skyscrapers to be completed worldwide in the next six years, increasing the number of skyscrapers in Chinese cities by over 50%, says Andrew Lawrence, an Asian property analyst at investment bank Barclays Capital.

China is already host to six of the 15 tallest, completed buildings in the world, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. The USA has three.

Dubai's world-beating Burj Khalifa, at 2,716 feet, should remain top dog for several years, but the Shanghai Tower, at 2,073 feet, and Wuhan's Greenland Center, at 1,988 feet, will take the world No. 2 and 3 spots in 2014 and 2015.

"The appetite in China for high-rises, in the last five years and the next five, is bigger than ever before in the history of building," says Silas Chiow, China director for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the U.S. architectural firm, founded in Chicago, responsible for the Burj Khalifa.

The firm is currently engaged in 50 China projects, including the tallest buildings in eight separate cities.

Chinese government officials believe high-rises "show their progress in terms of urbanization and modernism," spur wider development by boosting investor confidence, and symbolize "a city's desire to become modern and international," says Chiow, a Chinese-American based in China for the past 15 years.

While an architect three decades ago might be lucky to design a handful of skyscrapers, today in China, "one architect or firm can do a dozen or more super high-rises," says Chiow, 51. The boom is producing both startling designs and innovations in energy-use and sustainability, he says.

Chinese have mixed feelings.

"I feel proud to see these new high buildings, but they're not much use for ordinary people," says Fan Quanzhou, who has a newspaper stand opposite the dramatic new headquarters of national broadcaster CCTV.

Fan, 26, says business is falling as the neighborhood is cleared for Beijing's tallest building, a 1,640-foot skyscraper in the style of a traditional Chinese wine vessel. Fan earns less than $250 a month, and he and his wife, migrants from rural Henan province, pay $120 a month in rent.

"Property prices are way too high. The government should do more to build low-cost houses," he complains.

The building boom has produced "some waste and bad examples, but overall it's justified," says Ting Lu, a China economist at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong. "Many people believe China is overbuilding subways and transport infrastructure but they have no idea how many people there are in China."

Lawrence, author of the Skyscraper Index, warns that the completion of the world's tallest buildings has proven an indicator of an economic crisis to come. "Overly optimistic developers, a political desire to create 'statement buildings,' and banks overly keen to lend," lead to problems, he says. Thus far, the data "suggests China won't break the trend."

Source: Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY
http://www.dispatchmarketinginc.com/eReports/EngineeringDispatch/Chinagoesbigwithbuildingofskyscrapers/tabid/4767/Default.aspx

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Office Furniture Ideas

In case you were not able to attend the NeoCon convention this year, let me share with you some of the things that I saw there.

"Haworth" had an outstanding showroom filled with awesome furniture that can be used in offices and classrooms.

Knoll’s and Herman Miller’s showrooms were a good place to visit too. Some of the things that I saw in their showroom and in some of their “me too” competitors included:

• Ergonomically designed chairs. They had lines that were designed with various uses in mind. There were conference room chairs and desk chairs that looked enough alike but different enough to serve unique spacial needs.

• White boards were common too. Some showrooms showed entire walls finished with glossy white laminate surfaces that allowed the officer user to mark upon them with erasable color markers. Another variation of this was a special glossy white paint that can be applied to gypsum board walls that allow for erasable color markers to be used on them.

• Haworth has a good raised floor system that allows for almost any finished panel to be placed in tile like fashion. The finish of these panels could be terrazzo, VCT, stone, wood, or anything else you might want to step on. Raised floor systems allow the office to be wired and ducted below the walking surface. This allows the users to have easier access to the electrical, data, and HVAC systems in case these systems need to be altered during a future renovation of the office.

• There were several wall systems out there too. Every showroom had a slight variation of their design at the corners, base boards, and the way they butt the glass at joints. Some looked better than others. Haworth had one of the better designs.

• Of course, there were some gratuitous “green” designs. One showroom had polished river rocks in some kind of resin flooring system with log type benches and lime green upholstery. It was so “in your face” green that it just looked just manipulative towards anyone they hoped were overzealous about being environmentally conscience. I looked for photos of a particularly annoying showroom that had so much fake green stuff in it, it should have been in a Disney set, but I guess even that vendor was too embarrassed to broadcast photos to everyone.

There were a lot of other things that were there to see and I would be happy to talk with you further to even compare notes about what you might have seen there. Feel free to leave a comment below, email me at info@LaneArchitecture.net or call me at 212-594-2007 to catch up.



-Larry

P.S. Haworth flew me up there to join them at NeoCon and to see their factory in Michigan. Thank you, Haworth for giving me such the red carpet treatment.

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David Byrne: How architecture helped music evolve

I have always been a fan of David Byrne because he has consistantly hit a nerve inside of me. From studying (architecture, I think) at the Rhode Island School of Design, writing and filming a spoof about living in my home republic of Texas, and to his experiencial use of spaces to create music, David has demonstrated that he really is a creative artist that likes to push the envelope.

Take a look at how he explains how architecture shapes music and then let me know what you think. Have you noticed that the music you hear is affected by where it is performed?

On a side note, I will be attending the NeoCon convention this week. If you are going there too, give me a call at 212-594-2007 so we can meet and greet while there.

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