China central television headquarters report

China Central Television Headquarters ReportBy Aidan Gooch

Aidan Gooch Architectural Technology – Coursework 1 ID No: 4729701

China Central Television Headquarters Report

Table of ContentsIntroduction...........................................................................................................................................2

Origins...................................................................................................................................................3

OMA’s Idea............................................................................................................................................4

Construction..........................................................................................................................................5

Post-Construction & the Final Product..................................................................................................7

Bibliography...........................................................................................................................................9

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IntroductionThe building I am writing a report about is the China Central Television Headquarters (CCTV) which is located in Beijing, China. I decided to choose this building because since the first time I saw it I found it very interesting and unusual and wanted to find out more information about how and when it came about. I am also a fan of Rem Koolhaas who was one of the lead architects from Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) as he produces weird and beautiful buildings much like the CCTV building which is my preferred architectural style to look at, the Seattle Central Library and the Casa da Musica are some other buildings from Rem Koolhaas which I also like. In this report I might talk about Rem Koolhaas and his design philosophy but I will mainly talking about the who, what, why, when and how of the China Central Television Headquarters.

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Figure 1: A visual concept of what the completed building will look like, presented by Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in their entry to the competition


Origins If we go all the way right back to the beginning you can see that the China Central Television (CCT) company (a bit like our BBC) had expanded greatly back in 2002 with China’s economy rise and was becoming completion for major international TV and news services, and so with this expansion they decided that they should have a brand new headquarters that will stand out from the crowd and show off the prowess of their expanding company.

In February 2002 the State Development and Planning Commission formally approved the new CCTV site project. With this approval CCT went about starting their international design completion which invited architectural from from all over the world to participate and try to win CCT over in design their new headquarters. In the brief they wanted “all the functions for production, management, and administration to be contained on the one site, not necessarily in one building” (CCTV 2002). They also wanted the new headquarters to incorporate new concepts, new techniques and new methods which suits a television company’s needs, ecologically friendly, user-friendly and systematic in functions, which means they wanted the building to use its shape to make sure that the employees can work to the best of their ability. Finally they wanted the design to be innovative and environmentally beautiful and when the building is finished it should be an architectural landmark that will be known in China and all over the world, a bit like the Gherkin which everybody knows what it is called and where it is located.

On July 15th 2002 all the bidders (firms) submitted their design proposals in line with the brief (this included the drawings and models). From July 17th to July 21st, 2002 the judges decided the three final schemes which were offered from the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Tokyo Ito Associates and the East China Architectural Design & Research institute. The winner of this competition was the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) from Netherlands however because of regulations for Chinese project designing and construction a designer from China has to join with OMA and the East China Architectural Design & Research institute who were finalists were picked to join OMA in the construction of OMA’s headquarters design, Arup were also chosen as the engineering firm to help OMA’S idea come to life.

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Figure 2: OMA's model that they used in the competition and you can see that this model looks just likes the final building

As you can see from this model they did plan on placing a handshake on the tower 1 extrusion of the building, I don’t know if this is fixed on or it is advertisement that can be removed whenever.


OMA’s IdeaOMA’s idea was to have the new CCTV site consist of the headquarters, the TV Cultural Centre (TCC) and auxiliary comprehensive facilities. The main headquarters has a total floor space of around 280,000 square meters and is divided into five sections: the administration section, the comprehensive business section, the news production & broadcasting section and the broadcasting & program production section. These five sections that are located in the headquarters is exactly what CCT wanted and need to run their business successfully and what would you expect in a headquarters. The TCC has a total floor space of around 60,000 square meters and has a hotel, a TV theatre and audio stations, this building is mainly used as an add-on for the headquarters and adds extra attraction to the site and used not as much for the television company side. The rest of the site has a total floor space of around 110,000 square meters and is mainly the car park and security guard building.

Also in the brief CCT wanted all the functions for production, management, and administration to be contained on the one site not necessarily in one building which Rem Koolhaas replied to with that isn’t so much of a good idea and it may be better to have all the sections in one entire building and create a three dimensional working experience, this would force the employees from different sections to mix which would enable more communication between the employees and would result in a better end-product. From this comment Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren’s 450,000 m², 234m tall winning design does combine the administration section, the comprehensive business section, the news production & broadcasting section and the broadcasting & program production section which proves that Rem’s idea won over the CCT executives and perhaps brought a new light into the construction of buildings where there is multiple different sections that need to work together.

“The CCTV headquarters aims at an alternative to the exhausted typology of the skyscraper. Instead of competing in the race for ultimate height and style within a traditional two-dimensional tower 'soaring' skyward, CCTV's loop poses a truly three-dimensional experience, culminating in a 75-metre cantilever” (OMA 2012). This quotation from the OMA project page on their website is what they wanted from the begging in aesthetic looks and the geometry of the building. They say that they want to exhaust the idea of skyscrapers and constantly wanting the ‘world’s tallest building’ as it is economically stupid and even if you build the world’s tallest building it will be eventually be overtaken by somebody else, then what has your building got? I also agree with his idea of thinking as I think that you can achieve much more interesting shapes and create much more beautiful deigns if you’re working on going outwards instead of upwards, and like from the quotation they have managed to create a three-dimensional building which is a one of a kind building in the world and is more recognisable than most skyscrapers in New York and other skyscraper dominated cities. Obviously you can only do this when you have enough space so you can’t do it in most densely populated citied but when you can I think all architects

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should explore this opportunity of creating more of a building than a giant rectangle that just looks boring and brings nothing to the city it is located in.

ConstructionIn August 2004 after receiving approval for the structural design Arup started on the preliminary designs. Because of the buildings shape there had to be a lot of meetings to determine and justify if the building would have a sufficient seismic performance as Beijing does suffer from earthquakes. Arup decided to do a joint test which is where they tested a 1:5 scale model of the column joint to see its performance under cyclical loading and see if meets the correct requirements. They also carried out destructive test on a 1:5 scale model of the steel reinforced columns they are going to use; they did this because they thought that the high steel ratio in the building would lead to reduced ductility. The final test that Arup did was the shaking table test. This is where a 1:35 scale model of the entire building is placed on a table to see if it can withstand seismic events. The scale models for all the tests were as close as possible to what the real thing would be and managed to pass all the tests and so the project could move forward.

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Figure 3: As you can see from this picture even Beijing is starting to become a skyscraper dominated city and the arrival of the new CCTV headquarters brings a refreshing view to Beijing’s skyline.

This is a real picture from the table testing area and as you can see there is the 1:35 scale model of the entire building resting on a plate that will produce a replica of seismic activity from level 1 to level 3.

Figure 4: Picture from the table testing area


The excavation of the site began on 22 September 2004 and a total of 870,000 m³ of earth was excavated taking 190 days to complete. Both towers are supported on separate piled raft foundations which have up to 370 reinforced concrete piles beneath, normally about 33m long and 1.2m in diameter. In total 1242 piles were installed between the spring and summer of 2005. The rafts that get placed on top of the piles were installed in the winter of 2005 and involved having 7m thick reinforced concrete slabs that each contains 39,000 m³ of concrete and 5000 tonnes of reinforcement.

The first piece of steel of the first column was placed on 13 February 2006 and 26 months later 41,882 steel elements were also erected having a combined weight of 125,000 tonnes. An interesting point from this is that all the steel used during the construction came from China’s expanding steel industry which means that the materials could be delivered quicker and the building be built quicker.

One of the biggest problems they faced was how to join the two towers together with the cantilevers because as the two towers are getting built stress gets locked into the towers structure so when the two towers get connected there will be a locked amount of stress in both towers, the longer you leave it the higher the stress will be. From the picture below you can see the engineers at Arup came up with three alternative methods for building and attaching the overhang to the two towers. From the left, the first idea was to construct cantilevers from each tower until they would eventually meet and could connect to from the overhang, the second idea was to build a bit of the cantilever on both towers then construct the connecting part on the ground and hoist it up to fit in the middle and connect the final idea was to create a temporary 262m tall tower n between the tower official towers which would provide a platform to then use to connect the two towers with the overhang. In the end they went with the first idea to build gradually from both sides and then join together once close enough.

After deciding which method to use construction of the overhang began after the steel work for the tower towers was completed in August 2007, and from what I said before they started to construct gradually from both towers over the course of five months. This was the most important part of the construction because it would change the way the loads are shared in the building from two towers to one three-dimensional joined building, they had to make sure that it fit perfectly. Also because of the effects weather has on buildings Arup

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Figure 5: Three alternative methods of constructing the Overhang


had to monitor the weather movements for one week prior to the joining of the overhang so when it was joined there was no expansion or contraction that would cause structural strain after the overhang is connected.

Post-Construction & the Final ProductOn 16th May 2012 the official construction completion ceremony for the China Central Television Headquarters took place and everybody involved in the construction process was there. OMA partner in charge of the project Ole Scheeren said from Beijing: “After 6 years of intense collaboration with our client CCTV, our Chinese partners ECADI, and the engineers of ARUP, we are very pleased to see the successful completion of the exterior of the project on time for the Olympics. As the building now stands visibly in the city, it has added the three-dimensional figure of a loop to Beijing’s skyline of towers. It appears big yet sometimes small, and from every angle offers a completely different perspective and reading. We are hopeful to see the building emerge as a symbol of collaboration and change” (Scheeren O, 16 May 2012). I think this statement from Ole is a very inspiring comment and you can see that after the six years he is delighted with the completed three-dimensional building he and Rem Koolhaas wanted from the beginning.

If you look at the finished product I can see that the original idea has defiantly been fulfilled and the awe-inspiring three-dimensional idea has been brought to life and I think will defiantly become an architectural landmark in years to come when China’s economy starts to increase even further and people will start to look at the buildings located in Beijing and they will see the CCTV headquarters and think maybe I should go for something like that

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Figure 6: This picture shows the when the overhang was complete and the three circles that when glazed will act as viewing platforms for public viewing


instead of a skyscraper for my new office. Tower 1 which is the left tower on figure 6 is 234m high with a floor area of 465,000m² and contains the administration, programme production areas, staff facilities and parking. It also has a 10,000-square metre main lobby atrium which stretches three floors underground, and three floors up, the floors that lead underground also link up with Beijing's subway network and will be the arrival and departure hub for the 10,000 workers inside CCTV headquarters. Tower 2 which is 210m high is dedicated to news broadcasting and most of the studios. They cantilevering bridge (the overhang) is used for administration and a public media museum. From what I have just said Rem Koolhaas idea of having all the sections for running a TV station are located on one building and I personally think that this will be a better way to organise the workplace and I would prefer it personally instead of having to phone someone who is located in a building fifty meters away I can just go down one floor and speak to them in person.

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Figure 7: This a photo of the final construction of the headquarters and what looks like after everything was cleaned up, and I think it looks really beautiful even with its grey colours which some people may find drab and a bit moody.


Bibliography

OMA, (2012), CCTV – HEADQUARTERS, CHINA, BEIJING, 2002.

Available: http://oma.nl/projects/2002/cctv-%E2%80%93-headquarters

Last accessed: 09/12/2012

CCTV, (2002), General Office of CCTV New Site Construction & Development Program

Available: http://www.cctv.com/newSiteProgram/en/general_info.htm.


Scheeren, O, (16 May 2012), CCTV Headquarters in Beijing : China Central Television Building

Available: http://www.e-architect.co.uk/beijing/central_china_tv.htm


Figures 1, 2 and 3: E-architect, Central China TV, Beijing: Architecture Information (16th May 2012)

Available: http://www.e-architect.co.uk/beijing/central_china_tv.htm


Figure 4: nix, (07/28/2008), CCTV 1:30 shaking table test [Archived]

Available: http://sap2000.org/cgi-bin/ut/threaded_show.cgi?tid=163&h=1


Figure 5 and 6: Chris Carroll, (2008), The Arup Journal 02/2008, CCTV Headquarters, Beijing, China: Building the structure, (figure 5), p3

Available: http://www.arup.com/_assets/_download/D6E6AB4D-19BB-316E-4017A36ECEDCE0D6.pdf


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http://www.arup.com/_assets/_download/D6E6AB4D-19BB-316E-4017A36ECEDCE0D6.pdf

http://www.arup.com/_assets/_download/D6E6AB4D-19BB-316E-4017A36ECEDCE0D6.pdf

http://sap2000.org/cgi-bin/ut/threaded_show.cgi?tid=163&h=1

http://www.e-architect.co.uk/beijing/central_china_tv.htm

http://www.e-architect.co.uk/beijing/central_china_tv.htm

http://www.cctv.com/newSiteProgram/en/general_info.htm

http://oma.nl/projects/2002/cctv-%E2%80%93-headquarters

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China central television headquarters report