GUANGZHOU | Pearl River Tower | 310m | 1016ft | 71 fl | Com

[z0rg]

Originally Posted by hkskyline

China skyscraper plan will generate energy
22 February 2006
Professional Engineering

A skyscraper design that claims to produce more energy than it uses is trying to win a three-horse race for a corporate headquarters competition in Guangzhou in southern China.

The designers of the 69-storey Pearl River Tower claim that the tower will raise the bar for sustainable design. Architect Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is planning to harvest wind and solar energy for the development in the subtropical port. Its design wants to direct and manage the region's often fierce winds so they become "invisible braces" that stiffen the tower.

"This is a skyscraper for a new age," said Adrian Smith, consulting design partner at SOM. "Its sculpted facade will direct wind to a pair of openings on the building's mechanical floors. The travelling winds push turbines which generate energy for the building's heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems. These openings also relieve wind pressure on the face of the building."

SOM claims energy consumption is reduced by maximising natural daylight, reducing solar gain in air conditioned spaces, retaining rainwater for grey-water usage and using the sun to heat the hot water supply. Stack venting, radiant slab cooling and caisson heat sinks work to chill the building. AC current is generated by solar collectors on the facade.

SOM is also the architect for the Freedom Tower on the site of the World Trade Center in New York, which is due to open in 2010.

However, the Freedom Tower will not use wind turbines like the Pearl River Tower following a design re-jig last year. This led to the abandoning of wind turbines for what will be the US's tallest building. It was decided the canopy of other skyscrapers would cause troublesome turbulence and limit efficiency.

Originally Posted by hkskyline

SOM Wins Design Competition for Sustainable Skyscraper in China

CHICAGO, March 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP has won an international competition in China to design one of the most environmentally-sustainable buildings in the world, the Chicago-based architecture and engineering firm announced today.

SOM -- in cooperation with the Guangzhou Pearl River Engineering Construction Supervision Corp., and Guangzhou Design Institute -- will design Pearl River Tower, a 69-story corporate headquarters, for the CNTC Guangdong Company. The tower will be located in Guangzhou China, a subtropical port city of 6.6 million located 182 kilometers from Hong Kong.

"This project represents our commitment to sustainable design," SOM Managing Partner Thomas Kerwin said. "It also represents our commitment and spirit of mutual collaboration with China's design professionals, government and industry in pushing sustainable design best-practices."

Sleek and cutting-edge, Pearl River Tower will be an instant icon. SOM's design and engineering teams sought to create a visually-appealing building that produces as much energy as it consumes.

"The tower will absorb its environment and use it to its advantage," said project design architect, Gordon Gill of SOM. "It is a high performance instrument shaped by the sun and the wind."

The tower boasts an array of design and mechanical features. Winds directed into openings on the mechanical floor would power turbines that operate the tower's heating, cooling and ventilation systems. Solar collectors convert the sun's energy into electricity. Energy consumption is diminished by maximizing natural day-lighting, reducing solar gain in air conditioned spaces, retaining rainwater for consumption by HVAC systems and using the sun to heat the hot water supply. Stack venting, heat sinks and slab cooling cool the building.

SOM Consulting Design Partner for the tower Adrian D. Smith said the design "embodies the strategies of energy conservation and energy production we have endeavored to integrate into supertall projects for over a decade."

SOM was selected over seven design firms from four countries. CNTC Guangdong Company President Xiang Jin Cheng said the design "is the prototype for the intelligent building of the future -- highly efficient, sustainable and self sufficient."

Groundbreaking is scheduled for July 2006 with occupancy in fall 2009.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP

Web site: http://www.som.com/

Location at Zhujiang New Town



Costruction has started. No better pic by the moment, sorry.

[Kenwen]

cool, so da construction for this building started

[Mosaic]

OMG!!!!!! what an impressive design it is!!!

[CULWULLA]

another to add to bimonthly diagrams. how unique!
thanks

[megatower]

SOM, always designs the greatest building's, better then any other firm out there

[ZZ-II]

i love this project, that design is so unbelievable

[hella good]

wow, that design is pure sex!

[xiaoluis]

Orgasm...

[Kiss the Rain]

oh baby.......

[Kenwen]

update please

[VelesHomais]

Spectacular design, really impressive!

[xiaoluis]

Something new about this building?

[z0rg]

As far as I know, construction hasn't started yet

More images:

[Ginza]

wow a masterpiece of architecture

[Scottnufc]

ha they should make a skyscraper that can clean up the pollution this building is undoubtedly gonna be shrouded in more often than not

great design tho, whereabouts is it getting built in gz?

[Sagaris]

If this tower ends up looking anything like the renders, it will be the best looking skyscraper on this planet. Incredible!

[Mosaic]

very unique design!!

[Phobos]

The world needs more buildings like this.I didn't like this project when I first saw it,but after reading it's a green building I changed my opinion.

[Skyscrapercitizen]

Amazing, love it!

[lotsz]

When the Guangdong Tobacco Company solicited proposals for a new headquarters last fall, the company asked architects to incorporate measures for sustainability. The Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) took the project as a challenge, submitting a design for a 300-meter tower that the firm says will require no net energy to operate. Known officially as the Guangdong Tobacco Tower, but informally called the Zero Energy Tower, SOM’s proposal is among three finalists. A winner is expected to be announced shortly.

"We have been doing a lot of research into energy efficiency for tall buildings," says Gordon Gill, an associate partner at SOM, who worked on the proposal with partner Adrian Smith and engineer Roger Frechette. "We felt this was an ideal opportunity to showcase how a large building could be designed to utilize energy harvested from the local environment."

The tower’s primary facade would face south to take advantage of prevailing winds from that direction, which would drive a series of building-integrated wind turbines located on two separate mechanical floors. The curved geometry of the facade was designed to maximize the power generated by the wind, says Frechette.

This south facade would also be double-glazed and mechanically ventilated, with integrated louvers that would adjust automatically to the sun’s angle and intensity. Ventilated air would be channeled through a passive dehumidification system to remove moisture. Frechette says despite Guangdong’s humid, subtropical climate, calculations showed such a system could be used successfully.

The tower has other energy-efficiency strategies as well. A unique geothermal system would be integrated into the tower’s caissons and connected to high-efficiency chillers that would reduce the size of the mechanical plant by about 30 percent. Radiant slab cooling on each floor would reduce energy used for cooling by 40 percent compared to a conventional HVAC system, say the designers. Underfloor displacement ventilation would further reduce cooling energy and provide improved indoor air quality. Perhaps more important, the improved ceiling heights achieved through these HVAC strategies would allow the architects to fit the building’s program into a tower several stories shorter than originally anticipated, which would shave operating and maintenance costs throughout the life of the building.


Underfloor Ventilation with Radiant Cooling
In contrast to traditional HVAC systems, which consume copious energy from fans to mix fresh air with that circulating inside, Pearl River’s ventilation makes fans unnecessary. Since the incoming air is dehumidified and precooled within the double wall, it’s similar enough to the interior climate to introduce directly via underfloor displacement ventilation without mixing.


Cool water runs underneath each floor slab. As heat from the occupants and equipment builds, it is propelled upward by the displacement system, hits the chilled slab, and cycles downward, creating a convection tumble that circulates air through the space. Eventually exhaust air passes through the double-wall facade.


High-Performance Facade
The facade incorporates many layers of sustainable thinking simultaneously. Angled to take full advantage of natural daylight, embedded photovoltaics gather solar energy, while fully glazed low-e glass and integrated shades shield the interior from unwanted heat and glare. The double-wall construction offers insulation and a critical way station between the indoors and outdoors.


Exhaust air rises upward in this space to the mechanical floors, where excess heat is harvested from it. That energy is in turn used to precool incoming air, which produces condensation that supplements the building’s water needs. Even the facade’s shape has a purpose: its curves bend with natural wind pressures to reinforce the overall structure’s stability.




Wind Power
The structural curves funnel natural wind currents at their maximum velocity into turbines located on two mechanical floors. That energy can be used directly or stored in batteries for later. Isolating the wind turbines on these mechanical floors minimizes noise and vibration and simplifies maintenance.


Fuel Cells
Fuel cells generate electricity from natural gas, avoiding losses of as much as two-thirds that occur when transporting electricity from faraway grids. Rather than combusting the gas, which would emit harmful sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, the cells break down hydrogen electrochemically, converting gas to electricity with more than 50 percent efficiency. The high-temperature waste gas produced in this process yields even more usable energy for cooling and ventilation.


The tower is positioned to optimally harvest wind.