Day 3: Guangzhou Pearl River Tower > Opera House > Library

Guangzhou: Peal River Tower
Peal River Tower is an office tower located at CBD of Guangzhou.  It has 309m height with 71 levels.  It is the third tallest building in Guangzhou.  It is the first zero carbon building in China and it is one of the most environmental friendly building in the world.  It is applying the LEED gold certificate.

The architecture of Peal River Tower is intended to use natural energy to supply electricity of the building.  The facade is composed by three curved surfaces.  It enhance winds pass to the gaps between the curves.  There is a wind turbine in each gap to generate wind energy to electricity for the building.  PV system is also applied to the building.  Solar panels are installed on the facade to collect solar energy for generate electricity.

I'm appreciate to see Chinese aware environment issue when they are developing the city.  It is an important responsibility as a human living in the earth.  China always has great idea and concept on planning and developing, but they always missed the daily operation after period of time.  Practical daily operation is important for implement of the original idea.  The concept of environmental friendly should implant to all citizens.

Facade of Peal River Tower

The lift lobby is modern.

Water gun fire service system are common in China.

Wind turbine in the gap.

Motor of the wind turbine.

A premises in Pearl River Tower.

Lighting in premises

AC air distributors.

Air come from outdoor.

Solar panels

Guangzhou Opera House
Guangzhou Opera House has a outstanding architecture design.  The irregular shape make the opera house looks interesting, but it bring lots problems to the project.  The opera house built at 2009.  The architecture design is by an Iraq architect.  The construction work is by a Guangzhou construction company.  Cost-wise, the opera house costed RMB 13.8 million.  Guangzhou people was complaining the government spend too much on the project.  Quality-wise, the design of the opera house is interesting, but the workmanship is terrible.  It caused by miscommunication between the architect and local construction company.  Chinese construction technique is poor on irregular shape building.  They cannot handle the irregular joint and the curves.  The material that proposed by architect is not suitable to China environment.  The materials looks dirty after period of time.

Guangzhou Opera House is an irregular shape.

Another view of Guangzhou Opera House

Even the material is grey colour, the facade looks dirty.

There are big gaps between the materials of the
facade, and the pattern of the joint is terrible.

The interior is also irregular shape.

The trunk on the ceiling suddenly stopped.

The local construction company cannot handle the joint at corner.

What happened to the trunk?

Poor maintenance

Poor workmanship of facade cause water leakage.  The two
pipes are additional work to solve the water leakage problem. 

The joints are mess.

Poor workmanship

The wall painting is easy to become dirty.

Signage on the floor is hard to see.

The lighting in the big theater looks nice.

When close up to the lights, the workmanship is terrible.

The interior of a function theater is cool.

This is a dark theater for lighting performance.

Guangzhou Library
The new Guangzhou Library is at CBD of Guanzhou.  The architecture design looks interesting.  There is a glazed area connect two parts of the library.  It bring in more sun lights to the building and energy to the students in the library.  There is a self service book return machine which can identify the books and deliver the books to suitable floor.  It saved the time to manage large amount of books in the building.

Appearance of Guangzhou Library.  There is
a glaze seperate the library to two parts.

View inside the library to see the glaze area.

Inside the glaze area.  There are many bridges link the two parts
of the library.  Personally, I think it's too many glazes. 

Solid structure at in the glaze area.

Another view in the glaze area.

Self Service Book Return Machine

Delivery track of the Self Service Book Return Machine

Books are delivered to particular floor.

When books arrived the floor, the books need to put on the bookshelf by librarians

In my previous mind, the development of Macau/Guangzhou are behind Hong Kong.  This Macau/Guangzhou trip changed my mind.  Macau's gambling business is surpassed Las Vegas.  The living environment in Foshan is even better than Hong Kong.  China government aware the important of green environment and heritages.  They are improving their technology and knowledge on balance environment, heritages and development.  Chinese are improving rapidly.  I'm looking forward to see a new China after several ten years.