Green Beijing Architecture

Living the Dream: Bejing's architects prioritize the people

Daniel Allen

Linked Hybrid, Beijing, China. — Linked Hybrid, Beijing

In the history of urban development few cities have changed as quickly or radically as Beijing. Now that the Olympics are a fading memory, however, where does the city's architecture go from here?

To most of the capital's residents the pollution and the traffic seem as bad as ever, and virtually every street still boasts a tower block or mall under construction.

As Beijing's skyline gets higher, and the city's population increases, so living space becomes more crowded - an increasingly dense patchwork of humanity separated by superhighways, subway lines and seemingly soulless concrete plazas.

It's clear that Beijing's general philosophy of building big and building fast isn't going to change much in the foreseeable future. However, with the government's master plan aiming to create "a city suitable for living," there is some hope on the horizon for those dreaming of a more utopian and community-minded metropolis.

From cleverly designed mixed-use developments and cultural makeovers to fresh interpretations of the high-rise and innovative new towns, a new wave of architecture is now starting to offer fresh solutions for the capital.

Sanlitun Village, Beijing. — Sanlitun Village, Beijing

Goods From Japan delivered to your home or business. — Goods From Japan delivered to your home or business

Linked Hybrid, Beijing. — Linked Hybrid, Beijing

Going Green

Experts estimate that over the next few years China's urban population will grow by 250 million. In Beijing, where the population swelled by more than 600,000 last year alone, soaring demand for metropolitan living and working space is fueling a booming construction sector. In a process Neville Mars calls "flash urbanization," the city is expanding upwards and outwards at an alarming rate; with an existing building stock of 44 billion square meters, China estimates that it will add another 30 billion square meters by 2020, and much of this extra floor space will be in the capital.

In conjunction with Beijing's building boom, rising incomes and living standards mean that power-consuming appliances are proliferating like never before. At the turn of the millennium, China consumed about 8% of the total energy used in the world, more than any nation except the United States - at current rates this figure will double by 2020. While many talk of the need to reduce the number of cars on Beijing's gridlocked streets, building more energy-efficient buildings is just as effective when it comes to restraining carbon emissions.

"Even applying conservative estimates - if China's next 100 million homes are green, with drastically reduced energy requirements, then we are preventing a pollution increase equivalent to that caused by 100 million new cars. This, in itself, would be an incredible achievement," says George Bialecki, founder of the American NGO Alternative Energy Builders (AEB).

One of the highest profile green structures to be completed in Beijing this year, and one of the largest green residential projects in the world, is the Linked Hybrid building near Dongzhimen. Designed by US-based Steven Holl Architects, and envisaged as an "open city within a city," it will soon house up to 2,500 people. Massive energy savings will be gained by employing a geothermal cooling and heating systems, and a real sense of community will be engendered by a ring of elevated walkways enabling residents to move between blocks in search of amenities like schools, gyms, spas, shops and restaurants.

The eco-credentials of the Linked Hybrid will be rubber-stamped if and when it receives its official LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) accreditation, a voluntary, but much-coveted, green building award developed and overseen by the Green Building Council (USGBC), a US-based NGO. Only a handful of Beijing buildings, including the Olympic Village, have so far received LEED certification, although over 150 projects in China have now registered to undergo the rigorous and lengthy process of inspection.

China Life, Beijing. — China Life, Beijing

Village People

Another building chasing LEED certification in Beijing is the China Life Insurance Research and Development Center, designed by German architectural firm Henn Architekten in conjunction with China Construction Design International (CCDI). Construction on a site to the north-west of Beijing is scheduled to begin in September, and the whole structure should be complete by 2012. The whole development, ringed by open water, is based on resource conservation and sustainable parameters, and aims to win LEED's Platinum award, the highest level of green certification.

"These are exciting times for Beijing architecture and architects," says Beijing-based Henn Partner and Design Director Christian Bechtle. "Right now the number and scale of opportunities on offer to foreign architects in this city is way more than in Europe and the US. In terms of square meters, you can generally add a "0" to any project in the Old World, and then it comes close to a Beijing construction project."

Bechtle cites Sanlitun Village as the perfect example of a new Beijing project which has integrated retail and hospitality in an innovative, community-minded way. Located in what used to be the heart of the embassy quarter in the 1950's, the Village is a spectacular constellation of contemporary architecture, comprising 19 buildings across two sites, including the 99-room luxury hotel Opposite House. The north part of the Village will open later this year.

Bearing in mind the communal spaces of the Village it comes as little surprise that the chief designer, Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, drew inspiration from Beijing's hutongs. "I adore the hutong atmosphere and shapes and prefer them to the perfect lines and alignments of structures typical of many American developments," he says. "As The Village is central to Beijing, I wanted to adopt a Chinese approach, and create something more sophisticated and varied than the predominant 20th century America-influenced designs."

Kuma is also responsible for another forward-thinking Sanlitun-based creation - Sanlitun SOHO, a mixed-used commercial and residential project currently under construction opposite Sanlitun Village. With a planned floor area of over 450,000 square meters, Sanlitun SOHO is expected to be the highest grossing project for SOHO China, Beijing's leading developer of high-profile commercial property, since the company was established in 1995.

Designed as an open community by the Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, Sanlitun SOHO will comprise five shopping malls, tied together by a sunken garden which runs north to south and through which a narrow creek flows. Five mid-rise office towers on the north side of the site and four residential towers on the south side of the site extend above the mall podiums.

As with Sanlitun Village, Kuma is keen to emphasize the communal feel to his project. " Visitors to Beijing Sanlitun are at once struck by its unique charm. It is a place where the dynamism of the city borders on the serenity of a village, as illustrated by bars adjoining embassies. It is a 'compact city', not only in the sense of scale, but in the allure of its 'neighborhoodliness'. Sanlitun SOHO revives this vision in a novel style representative of the 21st century."

Qianmen Street, Beijing. — Qianmen Street, Beijing

Something Old, Something New

SOHO China is also involved in Qianmen, an area of Beijing more concerned with preservation than innovation. Located near Tiananmen Square, Qianmen Street has been a prosperous area for more than 600 years and long-boasted some historical stores. After a year of renovation Qianmen Street, complete with sightseeing trams, fully opened to the public earlier this year, although SOHO China has recently announced the official opening will take place on October 1.

In an effort to keep Qianmen Street's cultural connection intact, twelve local Beijing brands, known in China as "time-honored brands", have now resumed operating, and will eventually be joined by many others from around the China. They will rub shoulders with Western retailers such as Zara, Costa Coffee, Apple, H & M and Haagen-Dazs. The street's new architectural style is designed to replicate the Qianmen Street of the 1920's and 1930's, with classic grey brick facades, wooden archways, bird cage street lamps and bronze cauldrons.

In line with its age-old popularity with the masses, Pan Shiyi, founder of SOHO China, has declared his intention of keeping affordably-priced stores on Qianmen Street. SOHO China, which now owns over 50,000 square meters of retail property on the street, has already turned down rental offers from big international luxury brands. "This is not an upmarket business area," he explains. "We want to make shopping and dining here an experience everyone can enjoy."