Beez Neez now Chy Whella - Shanghai Tower

Shanghai Tower

Beez Neez now Chy Whella

Big Bear and Pepe Millard

Wed 23 May 2018 21:57

Shanghai Tower

We spent the morning packing and then went in search of the tallest building in the city, the Shanghai Tower, seen on the right of the group of three skyscrapers. Once through airport type security we stood and watched images projected on the wall of The Bund as it changed and grew through the ages, so impressed was I it has its own blog. Then to the exhibition, there we saw the collection of bid designs. August 200. Planning and Design Area of Lujiazui, Shanghai approved in principle in No.(1993)77 document, released by the Shanghai Government. Ten firms responded to the Request for Propsal, submitting 18 design schemes and 21 models. Construction began in November 2008, building was completed in 2013, the exterior was finished in the summer of 2015 and opened to visitors July 2016. The cost in pounds was 1,836,613,388 and two pence.

So here we are in the world’s second tallest building.

When the buildings currently under construction, the Shanghai Tower will be the world’s fourth tallest. The tallest will be the Jeddah Tower due for completion in 2020.

The Shanghai Tower upholds the super green and eco-friendly philosophy. The spiralling, 120-degree twist from the bottom to the top helps reduce wind loads on the building by 24% and saving 32% structure material. Being a window cleaner on the Tower is not for the nervous.

Function: Shanghai Tower has a total area of 576,000 square metres and is a megatall building, integrating five major functions. The tower offers international standard Class A office space and houses a luxury 5-star hotel. The podium includes retail space and a special conference centre.

The office floors are ideal for the financial service industry, regional headquarters of multinational corporations. The 5-star hotel with its supporting facilities provides personalised services, luxurious accommodation and meeting space for high-end customers from all over the world. The fully equipped retail podium includes brand concept stores, specialised restaurants and F&B outlets. The conference centre includes a 2000 square metre garden banquet hall that satisfies the needs of all kinds of events and functions.

After touring this tall building exhibition, you will take the world’s fastest shuttle elevators to the Top of Shanghai Observatory at 118th floor, enjoy the panoramic view of Shanghai City. The 125F and 126F will demonstrate the advanced technology that helps to stabilize this megatall tower.

After reading about the tower and several other of the world’s ‘biggies’, we went through a rather plush revolving door in search of the elevators.

OK, so we are going to see what 45.9 mph feels like in a lift, according to the happy cloud information boards tell us.

It was fun to watch the little pink blob, floor numbers and the speed as we shot up, several swallows to pop our ears as we went along........

Our first view was over The Bund.

Quite a roundabout.

As China’s first building rising more than 600 metres, the construction of Shanghai faced many difficulties and challenges, but it also made history. It is the world’s first single building weighing 850,000 tons built on soft-ground foundation. It sets a new world record by pumping concrete at one time to reach a height of 620 metres. The 60,000-cubic-metre concrete slab at the bottom of the tower was the world’s largest volume of concrete continuous poured on record in a civilian structure. Shanghai’s Tower also features hanging curtain walls of 140,000 square metres, as the first of its kind on a super high-rise building in the world. The building is equipped with the world’s heaviest damping system developed in Shanghai, which weighs 1,000 tons and adopts electromagnetism principle for the first time in the world.

Shanghai Tower has pooled all its resources and resolved many unprecedented architectural difficulties encountered during its construction. Insisting on adopting advanced Building Information Modeling (BIM) for technology management, the building realised the innovative exterior design and high efficiency in producing shop drawings. In various phases of processing, production, on-site construction and installation, it also provided accurate measurements that help reduce repetitive work and save building material.

We stood and watched the window cleaners on the Shanghai World Finance Centre next door. The building looks like a giant bottle opener.

As we bimbled we saw interesting pictures and information on the various support pillars. Shanghai Cathedral, at Xinle Road and built in 1931, was the only remaining church of typical Russian Orthodox style. Shanghai in the beginning of the last century was a place with mixed cultures and religions. In 1216 during Southern Song Dynasty Jing An Temple was relocated to West Nanjing Road from Wusong Riverbank, later it was destroyed by fire. Since 1984 the temple was gradually rebuilt and repaired. The Lupu Bridge is both the first steel structure arch bridge on Huangpu River and the first large arch bridge fully connected by welding process as well. The exquisite arc-shaped rib looks like a rainbow across the river. Boarding on the 100-meter-high sightseeing platform on the top of the arc rib, you will have a panoramic view of Huangpu River.

Looking down on the incredible number of low-rise housing, distinguished by different coloured roofs.

The blue roofs went on and on, thousands and thousands of dwellings.

Thirty uniformed Chinese “overseas students” took this picture at the gate of “China Merchants Steamship Company” (now as Bund No 8) on August the 12th 1872. This event was regarded as the beginning of studying abroad movement that praised by Tseng Kuo-fan of “the event without precedent in Chinese history”. My favourite was the picture and information on Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone, set up in September 29 2013, covers 7 areas including Shanghai Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone......... Opened in 1842, Shanghai Container Port is the busiest in the world, in 2016 it handled over 37 million TEU’s or about 514 million tons. The we stood in front of a diagram of the tower and read some interesting factoids: The continuous pour of 60,000 cubic meters of concrete took 63 hours by using 450 concrete mixer trucks and 8 pump stations in 4 districts. During building the tower used the country’s biggest cranes, four M1280D tower cranes greatly improved efficiency. The central energy control center (most advanced) has a variety of equipment such as combined cooling, heating and power, ground source heat pump, ice thermal storage, electricity-driven chillers, and boiler rooms. The world’s heaviest damping system weighing in at 1,000 tons. The tallest wind turbines. A total of 270 wind turbines of 500w capacity each are installed at a height of 565-578 meters, with total installed capacity of 1.19 million KWH. Window cleaning machines with the most complex ‘walking’ route. Moving in a spiral upward direction, the machines are installed on the top of the building. The tallest observatory is located on the 121st floor at 561 meters. The highest restaurant situated on the 120th floor at 556.7 meters above ground. The luxurious five-star hotel in the tower boasts the tallest lobby at 470 meters on the 101st floor. The tallest swimming pool with a view on the 84th floor at 393.4 meters above ground. The first high-rise to have cloud computing data center. The tower can accommodate 15,000 to 20,000 people.

The city surprised us with the amount of greenery and trees we saw.

We loved the sign that read “No Tossing”....... Back in the lift, we swallowed loads of times for the ear popping and exited through the very trendy shopping mall and up the escalator to street level.