BEIJING | Projects & Construction

[hkskyline]

Beijing uses trees to hold back encroaching sands
People's Daily Online
10:46, August 08, 2011

Beijing has afforested nearly 3,700 square kilometers of land in its northern suburb counties over a 10-year period, according to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Landscape and Forestry.

The construction of a 200-kilometer forest belt has been completed surrounding Beijing and Tianjin, which will act as the front line of defense for sand storms and dust.

Under the Beijing and Tianjin Sandstorm Source Control Planning, the shelter belt will cover Beijing's six suburban districts and counties: Changping, Mentougou, Huairou, Pinggu, Miyun and Yanqing.

The shelter forest will mainly combat local winds carrying sand from the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Shanxi and Hebei provinces and also aims at local sandstorm source control.

Historic achievements have been made in the past 10 years: Comprehensive treatments were carried out on 439 square kilometers of grasslands and a 2,010-square-kilometer small watershed was achieved. More than 4,700 water-saving irrigation and water resources projects have been completed and nearly 12,500 people relocated, said Gan Ging, deputy director of Beijing Capital Greening Commission.

The planning has greatly improved the local environment. Figures from the bureau show that the Beijing urban greening rate and forest cover rate are 71.35 percent and 51.75 percent, respectively, and increase of 14 percent and 10 percent over year 2000 figures. The accumulated days for air quality level II and above have hit a 10-year-record high of 286 days, accounting for 78.4 percent of the whole year.

Forestry has also become an important approach to enriching farmers. According to the bureau's statistics, the planning has brought a tourism income of 9 billion yuan and an annual 14.9 percent increase in peasants' income to 10,971 yuan.

[hkskyline]

China to construct museum highlighting history of overseas Chinese

BEIJING, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Construction of a planned museum that will highlight the history of overseas Chinese will kick off in downtown Beijing in September, according to the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese.

The building will be constructed near Dongzhimen in Dongcheng District with a projected cost of 220 million yuan (about 34.36 million U.S. dollars), which will be mainly-funded by the government, said Qiao Wei, vice chairman of the federation, at a press conference Friday.

Qiao said the news of the inception of the museum's construction, for which the proposal was first raised by Chen Jiageng, a famous overseas Chinese leader, in 1960, has been met with active responses from overseas Chinese.

Nearly 5,000 people have volunteered to donate to the project so far, and among the donations are more than 10,000 antique items for the museum, Qiao said.

The museum will serve not only as a new base for patriotic education, but also a window for overseas Chinese to express their feelings and cultural identity towards the motherland, Qiao said.

Currently there are around 10 museums, exhibition halls and memorial halls on overseas Chinese across China.

[hkskyline]

Expo Special: Beijing eco-friendly area now in the limelight
Updated: 2011-08-26 08:02
China Daily

Beijing will be starting its 9th China International Garden Expo, in the Fengtai district, in April 2013, with the emphasis on developing a friendly environment and resource-balanced approach to life, the organizers have said.

This biennial event first began in 1997 under the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development sponsorship in cooperation with local governments and has grown into an important international gathering of people in the gardening industry. It will run from April 2013 to October 2013.

This year's expo will be in the municipality of Chongqing in September. Previous sessions have been held in the cities of Dalian (the first), Nanjing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xiamen, and Jinan.

Thanks to Beijing's 40 prominent parks and 300 temples it won the bid for the 2013 expo two years ago, in December 2009.

The expo venue, in the southern part of the capital, near the Yongding River, is a key part of the government's restoration and development program and eco-friendly system around the river. The 267-hectare expo site is near the historic Lugou Bridge.

Construction work has begun and is expected to be finished by the end of next year. Some of its major elements are the following:

Garden Museum

The expo will contain the first national garden museum, with an area of about 6.5 hectares.

The China Garden Museum will use various high-tech methods to give a panoramic view of landscape gardening and the industry's achievements in China.

Exhibition Hall

The main exhibition hall has a planned area of 3.2 hectares and will describe the art of landscaping and leading technologies, new materials, and the most recent achievements.

It will also be the site of forums, seminars, business meetings and cultural shows on landscaping, the organizers have said.

Yongding Tower

The tower is another must-see item on the expo's itinerary. It is being built on Yingshan Mountain, on the expo site, as a museum at the centering of a group of other towers.

Planning Center

The west bank of the river will have an 8,000-square-meter center with the overall design of the expo and the new, eco-friendly Yongding River region.

The region is expected to be an ideal combination of traditional landscaping and modern high-tech development and a new attraction in Beijing when the expo site is unveiled in 2013.

[lianli]

This has nothing to do with Beijing.

[Divineator]

Dont blame him, there's still alot of people in this world who still believes that Shanghai is a city in Japan, for instance. :P

[Herzarsen]

CBD fest to mark start of core project
Updated: 2011-09-14 13:46

By An Baijie (China Daily)

BEIJING - Work to build the core area of the capital's central business district (CBD), which includes 18 new low-carbon buildings, will start on Thursday, a city official has announced.

"Preparation for the design and demolition, which started in March last year, has finished," Wu Guiying, Chaoyang district's executive deputy governor, said on Sept 13. "Construction on the (30-hectare zone) should be completed in 2015."

Wu, who is also director of the CBD administrative committee, was speaking at a news conference ahead of the 11th annual CBD Business Festival on Sept 15.

When finished, the zone will be home to the headquarters of 27 companies, including China Minsheng Bank and China Investment Corp, while it is also expected to attract investment of 100 billion yuan ($15.6 billion), with annual tax revenue of more than 50 billion yuan.

A total of 18 new buildings will be built, with companies set to sign low-carbon pledges on Thursday to show their determination to saving energy, land, water and other resources.

"Our goal is to save 65 percent of energy in the construction and maintenance of the buildings," Wu said. "Companies working in the zone should also be from low-carbon emission industries, such as finance and insurance, and be regional headquarters of international companies."
One of the green structures will be Beijing's latest skyscraper, a 510-meter office tower owned by CITIC Group that will have 104 floors above ground and four basement levels.

The final design for the core area, chosen from 203 options provided by 60 domestic and overseas agencies, will be unveiled during the festival, Wu said.

Work on the underground section, which will go down five levels and connect all 18 buildings, has already started. The project includes parking lots and emergency escape routes and will cost 4 billion yuan.

"People can drive underground from one building to another after the construction, which will definitely alleviate traffic above ground," Wu said.

An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 people will work in the core area, with 85 percent expected to commute using public transport, he said.

More than 180,000 people already work for about 15,000 companies in the CBD, making traffic congestion a pressing issue. Three new subway lines and three new bus stations will be built in the zone by 2015, Beijing Youth Daily reported. The west-to-east Line 6 will be put into use next year.

Source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchin...t_13685191.htm

[vizionaru]

really great architecture in Beijing, i would love to go visit one day

[Munwon]

I can't wait to see the master plan!!!

[lianli]

Originally Posted by Munwon

I can't wait to see the master plan!!!

Actually there is already a final masterplan by SOM:

http://www.som.com/content.cfm/pr_so...ng_competition

http://www.som.com/content.cfm/beiji...on_competition

[Newcastle Guy]

I thought Terry Farrell's plan had won? I prefer their design for the main tower.

[lianli]

Originally Posted by Newcastle Guy

I thought Terry Farrell's plan had won? I prefer their design for the main tower.

No, SOM plan won. But it's just a masterplan, so the designs for the towers aren't final.

[Ewan117]

Doesn't China take the SOM plan and make adjustments to it? Like the Shanghai expo, it was a fusion of three or four designs.

Yeah, designs aren't final, thank goodness. Some of the designs in SOM's plan are pretty average for the location they belong to

[Munwon]

The SOM plan is for another part of the CBD. Beijing is going to have a huge skyline in the future!

[daccounting]

Originally Posted by DesignBuild Source

Spiral Garden Museum in Taiwan by French Architecture Firm Influx_Studio







































International architecture projects have a modern history of being incredibly competitive. Although the industry in entirety has a competitive edge, architecture is the stand out sector in terms of intensive contest. Not only does it offer a wide range of different initiatives being developed, but pushes the boundaries of traditional architecture...

Read the full article at http://designbuildsource.com.au/fren...re-spirals-win

that is really so unique and fascinating!

[lianli]

Phoenix International Media Center





(for more render and construction pics for this project see the source link below)

Location: Beijing
Architects: BIAD UFo
Client: Phoenix Satellite Television
Project Year: 2009-2012
Project Area: 64973 sqm
Photographs: Courtesy of BIAD UFo

Phoenix International Media Center locates in the southwest corner of Chaoyang Park; the site area is 1.8 hectares. The total floor area of the building is 65,000m2 with a height of 55m. Apart from the media office, the broadcasting studios and the production offices, the building provides abundant of open spaces for the public to get interactive experiences, which expresses the unique operation concept of Phoenix Media. The logic of the design concept is to create an ecological environment shell embraces the Individual functional spaces as a building-in-building concept. The two independent office towers under the shell generate many shared public spaces. In the east and west parts of the shared spaces, there are continuous steps, landscape platforms, sky ramps and crossing escalators which fill the building of energetic and dynamic spaces. Furthermore, the building’s sculptural shape originates from the “Mobius Strip”. The sculptural shape provides the building a harmony relationship with the irregular direction of the existing streets, the sitting corner of the site, and the Chaoyang Park.

Source: http://www.archdaily.com/165746/in-p...nter-biad-ufo/

[Herzarsen]

Amazing project!

Here is a link to article with some more latest photos.

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat...ia-center.html

[Herzarsen]

Can someone identify the following Beijing CBD projects?

The foundation east of CCTV tower.

Originally Posted by onthebund

from www.gaoloumi.com

Photo by Mori

Posted by OntheBund on August 17th, 2011

Originally Posted by onthebund

This is old image from Google Maps. But the bottom left project is also progressing quiet well. The right side plot is the same as image above which is recent.

[hkskyline]

Beijing's housing sales down 12% in Jan-Sept
Updated: 2011-10-25 10:13
Xinhua

BEIJING -- Commercial housing sales in Beijing fell 12 percent year-on-year in the first three quarters of the year, a sign that the red-hot property market has begun to cool down, the municipal statistics bureau said Monday.

The total area of commercial housing sold slumped to 6.32 million square meters during the January-September period, the Beijing statistics bureau said in a news release.

Prices of new homes in the city have shown zero month-on-month growth for four straight months, while prices of pre-owned homes fell 0.4 percent month-on-month in September, according to the National Statistics Bureau.

The slump has been attributed to the government's tightening measures, which include higher mortgage rates, a ban on third-home mortgage loans and purchase restrictions.

However, sales of affordable housing for low-income earners jumped to 1.98 million square meters during the January-September period, up 120 percent year-on-year, the press release said.

Construction began on 13.75 million square meters of affordable housing during the nine-month period, up 470 percent year-on-year, as the city government has been building more such housing to help tame high housing prices.

[Þróndeimr]

OMA's design of the new National Art Museum of China.

[Þróndeimr]

UN Studio's design for the new National Art Museum of China. This is their proposal in an ongoing competition for the site.

Description by UN Studio
The architectural concept in the design for the NAMOC is based on uniting dualities; past and future, day and night, inside and outside, calm and
dynamic, large and small, individual and collective. The two volumes of the building reference ancient Chinese 'stone drums', large drum-shaped
stones bearing inscriptions in ancient Chinese. The exteriors of the two volumes are illuminated by art projections, creating a vast media facade as
a contemporary translation of the ancient stone drum inscriptions.

Whilst the architecture of the museum is represented by the ancient artifact of the stone drum, the art within represents its spirit, or its “essence”.
In the same way that the agile strokes of ink in a Chinese painting give spirit to a blank piece of paper, the art collection gives spirit to the museum.
The main focus of the design is to create optimal and varied spaces for the display of art; Spaces of different character, but all offering extensive
lighting possibilities and ample wall space in order to provide artists and curators with the optimal conditions in which to display their work and
communicate their ideas.

The design further incorporates high levels of circulation space, with the internal organisation divided into different routes, each guiding the varying
visitor groups around themed sequences of art and additional programmes. The NAMOC is strongly embedded within its cultural and urban context.
The public urban plinth plateaus of the cultural district act as 24/7 connectors and attractors between the levels of the street, the underground,
and the museum volumes.

View the renderings in high resolution


Illustration by UN Studio


Illustration by MIR


Illustration by MIR


Illustration by MIR


Illustration by MIR


Illustration by MIR


Illustration by MIR


Illustration by MIR