China Zun Tower, part of the rejuvenation of Beijing’s Central Business District (CBD), is a symbol of national identity. The skyscraper will be home to CITIC Group and CITIC Bank headquarters and attract international financial institutions and top 500 enterprises of China to
Beijing. Innovative planning and technology provided an integrated platform for intelligent construction to complete the project using prefabricated sections in only 62 months, faster than any other skyscraper in Beijing. The intelligent construction platform is the world’s largest using a jumping lift with service height over 500 meters and carrying two cranes. The speed of construction is about 1.4 times the average construction speed of similar super high-rise buildings already built in China.
The China Zun Tower design not only pursues a unique visual aesthetic, but seeks to design and build a structure to meet functional and high security requirements. The total building area is 437,000 square meters and 528 meters high, with 108 floors above ground and seven floors below ground. The shape is based on the traditional Chinese sacrificial wine vessel, while the design is based on the Kongming lantern. The building design effectively reduces wind load, withstands earthquakes of 8 degrees and has a low-carbon footprint with lighting, heat, insulation, water, waste disposal, ventilation, and other aspects to reduce energy consumption. The building also achieved green “Samsung” certification as a landmark high-rise green building.
CITIC established ProjectWise as China’s first enterprise-wide platform for information management and collaboration for a 350-person team spanning owner, designer, inspector, general contractor, and subcontractors. To manage the massive amount of project data, CITIC set up a “CITIC and ProjectWise Management Platform” for internal use and “ProjectWise
Platform for Project” for external use. These ProjectWise systems were synchronized and all the construction units, including the owners, design leaders, and construction and electromechanical general contractors, were equipped with four integrated collaborative networks to ensure timely synchronization of engineering information. The ProjectWise solution managed engineering, design, and construction audit drawings to enable automated workflows and secure storage.
With over 40 permission levels, ProjectWise enabled collaboration of the construction units in different stages of the project in Beijing, Shanghai, New York, and other places, so the owners and project participants had a secure network access to manage the project’s 540,000 documents throughout the project lifecycle. Routine files were transmitted synchronously every 12 hours, and critical files were transmitted synchronously every four hours. This strategy allowed design and construction teams to work together early on in the project to break information barriers and work simultaneously to shorten the project lifecycle.
On site, workers used i-models and Bentley Navigator for BIM review and engineering coordination to plan long-range collaborative work. Engineers used Navigator Mobile for design reviews, QA/QC, inspections, multi-discipline design coordination, and to improve on-site management efficiency. The team also used Navigator Mobile extensively for construction management to provide BIM models to the remote teams who were able to collaborate on multi-discipline design review and issues resolution with Web-based access to unified project information. The centralized storage and quick, secure access to project information is expected to save 15 percent in productivity costs.
The China Zun Tower established many “firsts” in China, including:
o Implementing ProjectWise to provide full collaboration among the owner, designer, inspector, general contractor, and subcontractors;
o Eight basement floors, which account for the most basement floors among Chinese Skyscrapers;
o Largest quantity of one-time concrete pouring for foundation slabs;
o Placing temporary and permanent firefighting systems during construction to eliminate turnover time and safeguard construction.
World “firsts” include:
o First skyscraper built on the assumption of 8 degrees of seismic fortification intensity to exceed 500 meters;
o First intelligent jumping steel platform for construction integration, which resulted in the largest plan area and carrying capacity in civil engineering;
o First jump lift to carry two cranes and with service height over 500 meters.
Luo Nengjun, deputy general manager, CITIC Industry Investment Co., Ltd., said, “During the construction of the super-high-level project, CITIC and its project participants set up a new information management model and formed a complete information delivery standard using Bentley’s ProjectWise collaborative work-sharing network. This went beyond the barriers of information transmission, and effectively enhanced the project management level.”
