By staff reporter Yu Dawei

From Caijing Magazine

The sky is not the limit for Shanghai. Two of three, eye-popping, side-by-side skyscrapers planned since 1993 for the city’s Lujiazui financial zone already reach the clouds. The third and largest -- the 632-meter Shanghai Center -- is scheduled to become China’s tallest building when it’s finished in 2014.

Ground was broken November 28 for the Shanghai Center. Plans call for 30,000 square meters of offices, hotels, shops and recreational facilities. Financial institution and company offices would complement those found in its existing neighbors -- the 420-meter Jin Mao Tower, completed in August 1999, and the 492-meter Shanghai World Financial Center, which opened in August.

A U.S. architectural firm, Gensler, designed Shanghai Center with a dramatic, twisting style accented by an outer glass wall. Nine aerial gardens would adorn space between the main exterior and glass walls. An indoor public park is planned as well.

All this is expected to cost about 14.8 billion yuan, according to project manager Shanghai Center Construction and Development Co. Ltd. But that’s only the building price. Caijing has learned that this and other towers are exacting an additional toll on the metropolis. Some experts say skyscrapers are contributing to the sinking of Shanghai.

According to the Shanghai Institute of Geology, the coastal city's ground level has fallen more than 2 meters over the past 40 years. The sinking has continued since land subsidence caused the city to slip a record 11 centimeters in 1965.

The weight of urban development is apparently playing a role. Now, as construction crews and cranes begin work on the largest skyscraper, experts say development as well as rising sea levels and shrinking groundwater levels could endanger the city of some 19 million.

Off the Drawing Board

The Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone is at the western tip of Shanghai’s Pudong New Area, much of which was blanketed by farms and countryside before 1990. The government started paving land to create a special economic zone after a 1992 visit by the late premier Deng Xiaoping, chief architect of China’s economic reform and opening program. Lujiazui was to become modern China’s new financial hub.

Almost from Lujiazui’s beginning, the Shanghai Center was on the drawing board. It was conceived in 1993 as part of the ambitious development plan that envisioned an impressive skyline. Indeed, the plan called for several super-tall buildings to symbolically reflect the rapid economic development of Shanghai and China.

Work on the Shanghai World Financial Center started early in the development but was suspended for six years during the Asian financial crisis of the 1990s. Altogether, it took 11 years to complete.

The Shanghai Center is to be the tallest, but integrated into the landscape and without replicating other building styles. The government in November 2007 helped create the building’s project manager with registered capital of 5.4 billion yuan. Shanghai Urban Construction Investment Development Corp. holds 51 percent of the shares, Shanghai Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone Development Co. Ltd. controls 45 percent, and Shanghai Construction Group has 4 percent.

In remarks shortly before the construction project began, Shanghai Center general manager Gu Jianping hailed the progress of Shanghai and Pudong as part of China’s opening. But he raised questions about the project’s timing.

Green Light

Shanghai officials have long been aware building too many high-rises in a small area can bring environmental and social costs. The Shanghai Urban Planning Regulations published by the government five years ago called for reducing the height and density of new buildings, while increasing public greenery and open space.

According to Wu Jiang, deputy director of Shanghai Urban Planning Administration, Shanghai Center does not clash with the policy. “It is part of the overall planning for the Lujiazui area from 15 years ago,” he said. “It’s the last, missing leg of the three-landmark cluster concept. It’s not a new project.”

The project also received a positive evaluation in the introduction to a report by the Shanghai Academy of Environmental Sciences. The environmental impact report, completed last May, says the building is environmentally feasible while briefly citing issues concerning air, water, noise and light pollution during and after construction. But only the report’s introduction has been posted on-line; the rest has not been published.

In addition, questions remain over the possible impact of super-high buildings on Shanghai’s ground.

Sinking Feeling

Shanghai’s first tall building was the 82-meter International Hotel, which was Asia’s highest building when it opened in 1934. By the 1960s, the city had 40 tall buildings. Now, the city has about 1,000 buildings more than 100 meters in height.

A number of buildings have started to sink in recent decades, with some slipping as much as 2 meters, according to Gu Guorong, technical supervisor of Shanghai Geotechnical Investigations and Design Institute Co. Ltd. He cited the Shanghai Exhibition Center and Jin Jiang Hotel as examples.

The sinking has been linked to a combination of heavy construction materials and soft ground, as well as technical and design errors. The Jin Mao Tower weighs 300,000 tons, and up to 600,000 tons of steel were used to build the Shanghai World Financial Center.

The ground beneath the city includes layers of sand and soil up to 300 meters in depth that washed over by the Yangtze River through the delta region over the past millennium.

Despite the delicate subterranean conditions of the Lujiazui area, where high-rises are concentrated, experts say the Shanghai Center should have no problems thanks to its innovative technology.

In charge of the building’s geological security evaluation is Jin Zongchuan, project manager of Shanghai Geotechnical Investigations and Design Institute Co. Ltd. He told Caijing the building passed a screening and his firm’s report was approved by the Shanghai Housing and Land Resources Administration in September. 

Nevertheless, other experts say the problem is not about a single skyscraper but concerns the overall impact of a high concentration of massive high-rises built on a limited plot of land.

In fact, concerns that Shanghai is slipping into the sea have been bothered local officials for a long time. According to the Shanghai Urban Planning Administration, which has been monitoring the situation, land subsidence in the city center attributed to the impact of urban infrastructure -- especially high-rises – has accounted for one-third of all land subsidence cases over the past 10 years.

The monitoring program’s chief -- Nanjing Institute of Geology and Mineral Resources Deputy Director Guo Kunyi – said land subsidence has been caused by the excessive tapping of groundwater as well as construction of skyscrapers.

Some dispute Guo’s view. Urban planner Wu said the key to controlling land subsidence is to reduce groundwater pumping, not halting high-rises.

The city has already slowed the sinking process by limiting the use of and recharging groundwater. The Shanghai Municipal Housing and Land Resources Administration said the city tapped 43 million cubic meters of groundwater in 2007, or just 29 percent of the amount pumped a decade earlier, slowing the land subsidence rate to 0.68 centimeters a year from 1 centimeter.

The bad news is the sea level is rising due to global warming. A December 2007 report by the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development named Shanghai as among the world’s coastal cities most affected by climate change. It predicted that, unless proper controls are taken, more than 2.3 million people in the city would be affected by rising sea levels and storm tides by 2070, leading to more than US$ 70 billion in economic losses. The city’s water supply could be ruined by a salt tide, further stressing groundwater supplies.

More Challenges

The Shanghai Center is touted as energy-efficient and ecologically friendly. Energy and resource savings of up to 60 percent over similar buildings are expected through the use of water recycling, rainwater management and use of local construction materials. Its developers hope it will be the first Chinese super-high-rise awarded so-called “green certificates” from Chinese and U.S. authorities.

The glass facade is designed to reduce wind loads on the building, which means builders need fewer construction materials, while the twisting feature will help collect rainwater for the air conditioning and heating systems, according to the Web site E-Architect.co.uk. Wind turbines are slated to generate power.

Marshall Strabala, the building’s director of design, said it will be the world’s first super-tall, double-skin building, creating a “Thermos bottle” effect for insulation and energy savings.

Some argue that a super-high building such as the Shanghai Center cannot save energy noting, for example, that it will require hundreds of lifts. They’re also concerned about the possibility of light pollution from the outer glass wall and “instant wind storms” caused by its close proximity to the two, neighboring skyscrapers.

Firefighters would face challenges as well. The current range of water hoses is 100 to 200 meters. A source who participated in designing the building told Caijing that, based on current technology, firefighters could do no more than restrict a fire to a small area inside the skyscraper.

Another challenge is traffic flow. Wu worries about whether the building’s entrances and exits can adequately handle vehicles as well as pedestrians.

The financial value of another super-high building is another unknown in Shanghai. Occupancy is now no more than 50 percent at the Shanghai World Financial Center. Since offices were first offered for rent several months ago, the daily price for a square meter has fallen as low as 10 yuan from 20 yuan.

Questions about aesthetics have surfaced, too. Local scholar Zhu Xueqin has described super-high-rises as “a steel and concrete forest lacking humanity.”

In hindsight, some officials and researchers say they could have given more consideration to practical issues than symbolic value while planning the Lujiazui financial zone.

“Many of the problems we face now had been considered during the planning, but we did not give them full consideration at that time,” said Zhang Shiyu, vice president of Shanghai Urban Planning and Design Research Institute. “It seems rather difficult to make amends now.”

1 yuan = 14 U.S. cents