Hello and welcome back. And this time, we mean WAAAAYYYY BACK! To illustrate this week's sexy and fun topic of subsidence, we are going to bring you a YRC FIRST (Cue the Drum Roll!). Yes, time travel! But as the saying goes, before we go backward we must first go forwards.
To start this week's missive, this is a depiction of what downtown Pudong will look like when the "Three Brothers" project is finished. In case you didn't know, Shanghai is now constructing the third of the "Three Brothers", the Shanghai Tower.
Shanghai Tower facts, according to "That's Shanghai"
We know what you are thinking. You are thinking, "where's the time machine?" We now fire up the good old Way Back machine to take us to 1921 in Shanghai.
There are no towers. No Pudong, really. Only wild old Shanghai. If you read the YRC column on "Sin City" you would know there is a lot of partying going on. So you hit a few bars, fire up the opium pipe, listen to some jazz, sober up and get back in the machine. You step out onto Nanjing Lu and WHAT happens?
Anyone? Anyone? Subsidence, baby!! You step out the the machine wearing your silly party hat and still clutching your now empty opium pipe and...
You fall six feet! Six feet, people. Weeeeeeaaaaaahhhh! THUD! Since 1921, Shanghai has...subsided or, more clearly, sunk SIX FEET. Shanghai is officially six feet lower. Here's why, from Time Magazine:
Read more: http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2012/05/21/soaring-to-sinking-how-building-up-is-bringing-shanghai-down/?iid=ec-article-mostpop1#ixzz218qBjfY1
To start this week's missive, this is a depiction of what downtown Pudong will look like when the "Three Brothers" project is finished. In case you didn't know, Shanghai is now constructing the third of the "Three Brothers", the Shanghai Tower.
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| Downtown Pudong, 2015. Photo courtesy of Inhabitat. |
The Shanghai Tower is well under construction and on schedule to top out at a neck-craning 121 stories and 632 meters tall in 2015. The building is organized as nine cylindrical buildings stacked one atop another and enclosed in a double-skin façade, the world’s first double-skin building of this magnitude.
Design firm Gensler say the overall concept driving the dynamic design is China and Shanghai’s emergence as major economic and cultural global influencers.
Shanghai TowerHeight: 632 METERSSooooo exciting! The Shanghai Tower is built RIGHT NEXT to the World Financial Center, the world's third largest tower and of course, the Jin Mao tower, the world's 13th tallest building. Total investment in the three giants is over 25 Billion dollars, about the same as the 2010 GDP for North Korea, for you factoids out there.
Floors: 128
World’s tallest: 2nd (upon completion)
Construction: 2008-2014
Construction cost: RMB 13.8 billion
Elevators: 106
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| The view from the Time Machine, 1921 |
There are no towers. No Pudong, really. Only wild old Shanghai. If you read the YRC column on "Sin City" you would know there is a lot of partying going on. So you hit a few bars, fire up the opium pipe, listen to some jazz, sober up and get back in the machine. You step out onto Nanjing Lu and WHAT happens?
Anyone? Anyone? Subsidence, baby!! You step out the the machine wearing your silly party hat and still clutching your now empty opium pipe and...
You fall six feet! Six feet, people. Weeeeeeaaaaaahhhh! THUD! Since 1921, Shanghai has...subsided or, more clearly, sunk SIX FEET. Shanghai is officially six feet lower. Here's why, from Time Magazine:
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NIR ELIAS / REUTERS
Since 1921, Shanghai, China's most populous city, has descended more than 6 ft.
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Shanghai’s skyline glitters with sleek financial skyscrapers and glossy residential towers, but below the city’s lustrous facade lies an enduring problem. Thanks to mass urban migration, soft soil and global warming, Shanghai is sinking, and has been for decades. Since 1921, China’s most populous city has descended more than 6 ft. Across China, land subsidence affects more than 50 cities, where 49,000 sq. mi. of land have dropped at least 8 in.
It’s not just the numbers that are frightening: the problem has manifested itself tragically and more frequently of late. Earlier this month, a young woman unexpectedly fell through the sidewalk into a 20-ft.-deep sinkhole while walking along the street in Xi’an. In April, a woman died after falling through the sidewalk into a pit of boiling water in Beijing. Scientists have continuously warned of dire repercussions if the government does not implement more stringent guidelines for urban planning, water usage and carbon emissions — and they expect the situation to get much worse in areas with large-scale, fast-paced construction, like Shanghai.
As progress continues on Asia’s soon-to-be-tallest skyscraper, the Shanghai Tower, the problem has manifested itself in malicious cracks nearby, captured and posted by users of the Twitteresque microblogging site Sina Weibo, then published by ChinaSmack. In mid-February, one blogger posted about a 22-ft.-long crack situated near the 101-story Shanghai World Financial Center, across the street from the highly anticipated tower.
In response to bloggers’ concerns, Shanghai Tower Construction, the company responsible for building the tower, issued a statement saying surface cracks were “controlled and safe,” the Shanghaiist reported. Liu Dongwei, chief architect of the China Institute of Building Standard Design & Research, cited groundwater, rainfall and soft soil foundation as the reasons for the settlements. But that’s only partially accurate.
Shanghai has inherently soft soil because of its geographical position at the mouth of the Yangtze River basin and, yes, groundwater accounts for nearly 70% of land subsidence; however, experts say, the weight of skyscrapers and global warming also play hefty roles in aggravating what they call “the most important geological disaster in Shanghai.” Unfortunately, the implications will only grow graver with the pace of development and rising sea levels.
According to a report by the Shanghai Geological Research Institute, the physical weight of skyscrapers accounts for 30% of Shanghai’s surface subsidence. “Usually groundwater pumping is the key factor,” Jimmy Jiao, a professor of earth sciences at Hong Kong University, tells TIME. “But in Shanghai, development is also important because the building density is high, and most of the high-rise buildings are sitting on the areas with soft soil.” Basically, what’s happening is, the weight of high-rise towers presses down on the earth, as if you were to put a weight on a spring or scale.
Subside THIS!
So you see the problem with the Shanghai Tower. Three of the biggest buildings in the world are built on the sand and mud of the Yangtze River basin, in an area that was rice fields ten years ago.
All that weight, concentrated in one city block. Hmmm. In our feverish YRC minds, we see the three towers majestically sinking into the ground like epic, slow motion pile drivers. As the rate of subsidence increases, the building's height numbers are adjusted each year, but the sinkage will be reported to be "controlled and safe".
"The Shanghai Tower, formerly the second highest building in the world, is now nearly as high as the Metropolitan Tower, in Youngstown Ohio. The Tower features the world's largest basement, which extends over 2,000 feet below ground."
Or, they may simply build new floors on top of the building to keep it at the same height. Who knows? We certain are going to enjoy the glacial departure of the Shanghai Tower on it's epic journey to the center of the earth...stay tuned!
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| Shanghai Tower prepares for descent to center of the earth |
All that weight, concentrated in one city block. Hmmm. In our feverish YRC minds, we see the three towers majestically sinking into the ground like epic, slow motion pile drivers. As the rate of subsidence increases, the building's height numbers are adjusted each year, but the sinkage will be reported to be "controlled and safe".
"The Shanghai Tower, formerly the second highest building in the world, is now nearly as high as the Metropolitan Tower, in Youngstown Ohio. The Tower features the world's largest basement, which extends over 2,000 feet below ground."
Or, they may simply build new floors on top of the building to keep it at the same height. Who knows? We certain are going to enjoy the glacial departure of the Shanghai Tower on it's epic journey to the center of the earth...stay tuned!
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