New facility on the way, test tower opens, designs released, and opportunities arise.

Hyundai Breaks Ground for New Shanghai Plant

South Korea’s Hyundai Elevator Co. has broken ground for a new plant in Shanghai (ELEVATOR WORLD, April 2017) that company officials said will more than triple its output capacity in the huge Chinese market, Pulse reported in March. The company said it was launching construction of a new, KRW120-billion (US$112.5-million) elevator factory on a 123,564-m2 site in Jinshan Industrial Park that would have an annual capacity of 25,000 units per year; Hyundai currently produces 7,000 elevators annually in the Chinese market. Hyundai said the plant will employ the latest manufacturing techniques, including machine learning and Internet of Things technology. It will have an R&D center and a 175-m-tall test tower that can test 14 elevators. Completion of the factory is scheduled for late 2019.

thyssenkrupp Opens High-Speed Test Tower

thyssenkrupp said a 248-m-tall test tower, one of the tallest in the world, “stole the show” at an opening ceremony for its new plant in Zhongshan City (EW, May 2016) in March. With 31 stories above ground and 13 shafts, the tower will be used to test high-speed elevators and the ropeless MULTI system. The plant and tower represent a US$128-million investment and point to the company’s continued investment in China, its largest market in Asia. New concepts and pilot products, including an elevator reaching speeds of up to 18 mps, will be tested in the tower, which is approximately the same height as thyssenkrupp’s 246-m-tall tower in Rottweil, Germany (EW, September 2017). In line with stringent safety requirements, the tower is outfitted with an active mass damper system that significantly reduces sway caused by changes in weather conditions, and mimics extreme conditions such as earthquakes and typhoons.

Remarkable SOM Design for Hangzhou Wangchao Center

“Programmatic, structural and environmental criteria” drove the striking design by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) for the Hangzhou Wangchao Center, a 288-m-tall, 54-story mixed-use tower set to be complete in 2021 in the heart of Hangzhou, China, host of the Asian Games in 2022, designboom reported. SOM observed the structure, housing office, hotel and retail space within its 125,000 m2 is adjacent to one of the city’s new subway stations and signifies its future as a new, global destination. Its distinctive, rippling silhouette is the result of a structure that “minimizes wind loads with eight mega columns that slope outward to create large, flexible floorplates.”

Shanghai Agency to Facilitate New Elevators for Old Buildings

An agency has been set up in Shanghai to help get elevators installed in older residential buildings, Shine reported in March. About 220,000 buildings in Shanghai lack elevators, and of the one million households within these buildings, nearly 40% include residents more than 60 years old. The agency, the Jiajiale Elevator Installation Studio, was created because residents who were requesting elevators for their buildings — and even government officials — were confused about the procedures to have the work approved.

The newly established agency has summarized an “elevator installation process” that smooths a procedure that will cut the approval process time to three months. The typical CNY700,000 (US$110,570) cost of the installation will be divided among residents according to a formula that will charge more to those living on higher floors, but the city will subsidize 40% of the amount once the elevator is ready for use. City regulations require that 90% of a building’s residents agree to the project before elevators can be installed.

Nanjing Supertall Details Released

The Yangzi Evening News reported in April on the submission of the planning and design plan for the southwest Nanjing River Fishmouth Financial Agglomeration Project. The first phase includes a 580-m-tall tower for the sprawling project’s “A block” in Nanjing, which would be one of the tallest in the city and positioned as a new international center in the Jiangnan District. The Southwest River Fishmouth Financial Agglomeration Area is the core area of the Hexi Central Business District, located at the junction of what are known as the “three rivers” of the Yangtze River. The total area of the project exceeds 160,000 m2.

The source elucidated:

“This area will focus on the introduction of modern service industries such as finance and insurance, high-end business headquarters, and cultural and leisure tourism, creating an international new center for the main city of Gangnam, and at the same time becoming an important tourist destination in the east of China.”