Pan-Pearl River Delta
The "Pan-Pearl River Delta Region" sometimes referred to as "9+2" was a concept first proposed at the 2003 International Conference on the Economic Development of Guangdong Province. It now has flourished into a working system that includes the nine provinces in th
e Pearl River Delta (the 9),one of which is Guangzhou, along with two Special Administrative Regions, Hong Kong and Macau (+ 2). It was designed to create future cooperation between the 11 areas and benefit from things such as infrastructure, trade, tourism, labor, education, and so on. There is now a 2008-2020 plan to boost the success of the Pan-Pearl Delta Region. Two areas of which - Guangzhou and Macau - are already far ahead of the rest. GuangzhouGuangzhou is the capital of the Guangdong province and is located along the Pearl River, North-Northwest of Hong Kong and North-Northeast of Macau. the city hosts a population of 12.78 million people making it the third-largest city in China and the single largest in Southern China. The city is the main manufacturing hub of the Pearl River Delta - a dense network of nine cities including Guangzhou as well as Shenzen, Zhuhia, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Foshan, Huizhou, Jiangmen, and Zhaoqing - which is one of mainland China's leading commercial and manufacturing regions. In 2013 Guangzhou's GDP reached 248 billion USD and as the economy began to grow so did the construction. |
Another very unique design of theirs was the double skin curtain walls. These walls are composed of an outer layer of glass that runs along the entire facade of the building on both the front and back sides and an inner layer of glass spaced 300 mm away. this creates an air gap between the two layers that can work as insulation as well as creating a space for them to put automated blinds which themselves are equipped with photo-voltaic cells so that when the interior of the building isn't utilizing natural lighting the building can be run by the energy generated from these cells. | Pearl River TowerGuangzhou's image of sustainability is the Pearl River Tower. Designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, Pearl River Tower sets a new bar for innovation when it comes to sustainability techniques. The 71 story building uses a number of techniques to increase it's energy efficiency but a couple of them really jumped out at me. The first and most noticeable are the wind turbines incorporated into the facade. On the 24th and 53rd floor there are two wind turbines that generate electricity for the building. The building's facade mainly revolves around this feature as it was designed to assist the wind toward the turbines and the building was tilted 12.8 degrees Southeast to maximize prevailing winds. The turbines operate at wind speeds between 4.5-16 m/s. Although the turbines do produce energy for the building they only produce 1-2% of the buildings energy requirements so they decision to put them in the facade was more of a symbolic gesture to show what can be accomplished with sustainability today. Although it was most likely not the most cost effective decision they could have made, it was certainly a huge milestone for sustainability in building design and could have a huge effect on the world in the future. |
Guangzhou Opera House
Designed by Zaha Hadid, the four year old opera house is quite the conundrum. It was rated as one of the "10 best opera houses around the world" by USA Today yet seems to be falling apart around every corner. It was designed to resemble two rocks washed by the Pearl River but it seems that some of the "Pearl River" seemed to find it's way inside, for just one year later the building had major leaks due to its complicated facade. The exterior is created of 75,000 exterior stone panels along with glass and steel framework but due to the complex design and questionable workmanship of some of the construction companies that worked on the project many of the stone slabs have caused major leaks in the building and need to be replaced. The complexity of the design not only made it difficult to construct but the ability to maintain the structure suffers as well and as a result the attempts at fixing these leaks have created many eye sores throughout the interior of the building as a number of drainage pipes have been covered up by drywall protruding from the inside of the walls. This building provides an excellent example of how China's construction industry has been making great strides forward but still has a large way to go. Some of the world's most sustainable and well built buildings have been constructed in China but when corner's are cut to save costs buildings can end up being complete failures. | On top of this the building isn't even able to receive a resident opera company which i assume is caused by the expectation that it will not create enough revenue due to it's location - being in the center of a business district with little to no residential areas around it - along with it's noticeably poor condition after construction. Due to this, the building has a very low level of occupancy and therefore isn't properly maintained which, on our trip there on August 1st 2014, was made evident by it's water-stained and eroding walls, dirty floors, and incomplete room signage - among other things. |
Macau
One of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China, Macau lies on the west side of the Pearl River Delta and is one of the new additions to the Pan-Pearl River Delta Region. Until December of 1999 when it was transferred back to China, Macau was a Portuguese Colony and the last European colony in Asia. Similar to Hong Kong, Macau was granted a high degree of autonomy for at least fifty years after the transfer. Macau rely's on mainland China for the majority of its food, fresh water, and energy imports as well as Japan and Hong Kong for its raw materials and capital goods. Because of this arrangement, Macau can afford to utilize most of its land for profitable buildings such as hotels and casinos, and in 2002 it became one of the world's richest cities and following that - in 2006 - became the world's biggest gambling center. As the world's biggest gambling center it only makes sense that Macau is home to the world's largest casino and thanks to Barry Wilson and Moses Ling, my class was lucky enough to receive a tour of this monumental establishment. |
The Venetian Macau
At 39 stories and an amazing 980,000 square meters this colossal casino has truly earned its place as the largest in the world. The resort has 3,000 suites, 111,000 square meters of convention space, 149,000 square meters of retail space, and 51,000 square meters of casino space. The casino features 3,400 slot machines, 800 gambling tables, and has a 15,000 seat arena for entertainment and sporting events. But what do you need to run a $2.4 billion casino?
The Venetian is equipped with its own separate kitchen just for employees. There are 63 chefs cooking at any one time to feed up to 6,000 Venetian employees during any one shift which, after 3 8-hour shifts, can be up to 15,000 employees a day. In order to do their job all of these employees need uniforms. Each employee is given four uniforms and is assigned to a door where they can swipe their identification card and a conveyor belt will bring their uniform to the door where they can pick it up to change. The Venetian's uniform storage room holds over 200,000 pieces of clothing and launders 8,000 uniforms a day to a cleaning company that is hired specifically by The Venetian so that none of the uniforms are ruined. In order to return the uniforms to their proper placement after they are laundered, 24 employees - any one of which can handle up to 2,000 uniforms a day - work around the clock in the wardrobe room matching the uniforms to their correct places on one of four conveyor belts all by reading a code that is sewn into each piece of clothing with its owner and placement information on it. In order to ensure that none of the four conveyor belts that hold all of these uniforms breaks down they are maintained daily. | The Venetian also has its own Maintenance Dispatch Center which answers calls for The Venetian as well as Sands and Sands Cotai Central. This central maintenance center answers dispatch calls for any of the three casinos and then notifies the respective maintenance center depending on what hotel it's for. The center receives approximately 500 phone calls a day as well as 1300 maintenance related requests. Maintenance calls for the gaming center are responded to in 15 minutes while other maintenance concerns are responded to in 30 minutes. In order to increase maintenance speed and efficiency there are 86 different technical teams that respond to specific tasks on the property. To maintain a comfortable temperature across the entire property 6 pairs of chillers are operated totaling 48000 tons of cooling and a monthly utility bill of $20 million. |
References1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangzhou 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_River_Delta_Economic_Zone 3. http://www.scmp.com/article/517442/nine-plus-two-might-make-crowd 4. http://www.som.com/projects/pearl_river_tower__sustainable_design 5. http://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/06/pearl-river-tower-most-energy-efficient.html 6. http://www.newyork-architects.com/en/som/projects-3/pearl_river_tower-43402 7. http://gzdjy.org/intro.aspx 8. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8620759/Guangzhou-Opera-House-falling-apart.html9. 9. http://www.archdaily.com/115949/guangzhou-opera-house-zaha-hadid-architects/ 10. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/arts/design/guangzhou-opera-house-designed-by-zaha-hadid-review.html?pagewanted=all 11. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macau 12. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/business/international/macau-rides-high-on-new-round-of-casino-construction.html 13. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Venetian_Macao 14. http://twistedsifter.com/2010/07/worlds-largest-casino-venetian-macao/ 15. http://www.economist.com/node/9726642 16. http://www.macauca.com/seminar/pdf/VenetianParcel.pdf 17. http://english.people.com.cn/102775/208085/8365808.html | Images1. http://www.slcss.edu.hk/subjects/geog/PanPRD_e.gif 2. http://www.chinahighlights.com/image/guangzhou/guangzhou-location-map.jpg 3. http://megaconstrucciones.net/images/rascacielos/foto/pearl-river-tower-3.jpg 4. http://www.som.com/FILE/17902/pearlriver_sustainable_700x800_som_07.jpg?h=800&s=17 5. http://www.som.com/FILE/17810/pearlriver_mep_700x800_som_05.jpg?h=800&s=17 6. Brianna Castellanos 7. Brianna Castellanos 8. Brianna Castellanos 9. http://www.operationworld.org/files/ow/maps/lgmap/chnm-MMAP-md.png 10. http://www.helloholidays.com.my/media/2014/03/macau.jpg 11. https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6095/6333368181_4847447e9e_z.jpg 12. Matt Farrell 13. Matt Farrell |