Underground space is a resource of which man has not yet made full use. It goes downward instead of upward as skyscrapers. For a city like Beijing, China, with a population of 12 million together with 1.5 million vehicles, development of the underground space will probably lead the future trends in city planning and reconstruction.
Built in 1959, the Beijing Railway Station looks stylistic but was a failure in respect to its underground planning. Overcrowded by passengers and vehicles, some architects tried to build an underground square in front of the main building to mitigate the jam, but how? As it was not designed with the structure, there's no way to hollow the base of the building later. This station had been under enormous passenger pressure until 1996, when the Western Beijing Railway Station opened for public use.
The underground space is good for human activities that take relatively short time, such as short commutes, shopping, sports and recreation. It's also good for storage areas and parking. Of course, the vertical transport equipment plays an important role in any multi-story underground complex, just like the newly built Xidan Cultural Square in Beijing.
The square's current location used to be a block of busy and crowded shopping streets until a few years ago. According to the new planning, all the old buildings northeast of the crossroads were to be pulled down to make way for a new project. From early 1998 through the end of 1999, construction was underway. Unlike other projects, people saw no concrete structures going up and heard none of the annoying noises as were heard from any other construction sites in the downtown area.
Most of the construction work was completed by September 1999, and a pretty square named Xidan Cultural Square came into being -- covered with trees, flowers and lawns with marble walkways across it, and a glass pyramid in the center. Toward the end of 1999, Ma Guoji informed your author that his company was contractor of six IGV S.p.A. hydraulic installations and the skating ground equipment for the underground complex of the square. On an April afternoon, we made a visit to see the equipment underground.
We took one of the duplex cargo lifts from the ground parking lot down to the lowest floor -4. What an in-door square! Shops are around it, and though some of the stores were not yet open, shoppers were already seen here and there. Across the square, a pair of high-rise escalators caught my attention; however, it was suggested we see the hydraulic machine room first.
The total underground construction area is 60,000 square meters, distributed on the four levels from -1 down to -4. It was designed not only to house a huge shopping center with restaurants and cafes, but also to provide multi-purpose sports and recreational facilities for people in downtown Beijing, such as a balling hall, a swimming pool, a rock-climbing wall, a cinema, etc. The four passenger lifts and 12 escalators serve as guides to lead people to and from several separately located entrances of the underground zone, as do automated people movers between the floors. Direct access has also been made to the subway Line No. 1.
The four 1000-kg passenger lifts with the handicapped requirements are grouped in two duplex banks with stops from Ground to -4, located in the passenger-intensive areas, while another two 1600-kg goods lifts, also in duplex, serve between an upper parking lot and the cargo transport channels on the lower floors. These hydraulic lifts travel 0.5 m/s.
The 12 Schindler escalators are arranged in two groups. One group of eight serves every floor in the shopping zone, while another group of four is located below the pyramid entrance. Two of these lead passages from ground to -1, and vice versa, the other two travel between -1 and -4 nonstop. The installation of the elevators and escalators took no more than 20 days to facilitate the in-door decoration work.
The co-contractor was Beijing AOYI Elevator Engineering Technology Company (BAE), a joint venture between CHENG TAI Engineering Co. Ltd., the 85% shareholder, and the local 15% shareholder of the AI YIN B&T Co. Ltd., Guoji's privately owned business in the industry.
Since its founding in 1995, BAE has contracted quite a number of projects in Beijing. The most prominent one, of which Guoji feels proud, was the underground complex of Xidan Cultural Square -- equipped with six IGV hydraulic systems.
On an afternoon preceding the end of 1999, Guoji showed me to another jobsite in Beijing, a residential building for officials of the municipality government. There are 16 stories on the ground and three basement floors; 16 elevators serve for vertical transport, of which 14 are hoist type and two are hydraulic systems.
"It is hard to win a project like this one due to cut-throat competition," Guoji told me in a small room of the basement reserved for his stand-by mechanics, "but our strengths lie in the capability to supply the users with the best ratio between quality and costs for the imported lift materials and satisfactory service with moderate charges."
Composed of sales veterans and experienced field people, they know what the customers want from the market. Main lift components, the drive and control systems from IGV, a permanent Italian supplier, frequently adjusted travelling comfort and floor leveling. Minor customer-tailored modifications were made to ensure reliable functioning of the equipment, such as a protection circuit (switch) added to guard against the impact on the control by electric current fluctuations (280-420V at its worst), and the 24-hour stand-by service required by some customers.
The green Alberto Sassi S.p.A. gears looked compact and sounded light on the raised concrete platform in the machine room, with red arrows marked on the pulley to show the rotary direction for service personnel. The trunks were well laid on the floor, and the control cabinets stood in a well-lit position by the wall in the neat machine room. These are sizable controls with the PCBs incorporated facing out. "Oh. It's big, but service-friendly," Guoji explained before I raised the question. On the wall is a glass panel of "The Safety Procedures."
Guoji has been devoted to his company. To maintain a good company image, he has the logo engraved on the car and landing push-button boards by his Italian partner. "We do so because we're confident of our own efforts. It makes no sense by following suit without accepted reputation." Up to now, BAE has succeeded in making all the contracted installations pass the authorized inspection only once, which means both good work quality and lower costs on the job.
He was on a site inspection that day and said he would not mind if his guys were found asleep. "When they rest, the lifts must work well, but when they are busy, the lifts must be at rest." His superintendent reported a breakdown rate lower than 0.3 in the first three months of the new installation and no complaints from the customer.