Kelvin Wong
Associate
Arup, Beijing

Weiping Shao
Chief Architect
Beijing Institute of Architectural Design - BIAD, Beijing

Nengjun Luo
Director & Vice-General Manager
CITIC HEYE Investment CO., LTD., Beijing

A Comprehensive Risk Management Plan Bolstered by Digital Syncing

As the tallest building in Beijing, CITIC Tower is the anchor of a 30-hectare new central business district established on the east side of the city, and as such is fortified to withstand an 8.0-intensity seismic event. Its anti-lateral-force structural system, in the configuration of a giant outer-frame-plus-core-tube configuration, ensures that it will safely survive the strongest earthquakes, that it will be repairable following moderate earthquakes, and will not register any damage in a minor earthquake.

BIM technology was integrated throughout the design, construction, and building management project phases. An intelligent self-climbing steel construction platform with a bearing capacity of 4,800 ton and 1,849 area, the largest known in the world for commercial building construction, was critical to the speed of construction. A permanent and temporary self-climbing elevator system with speed of 4 meters/second with a lifting height of 514 meters was also employed during construction.

The project relies on a smart operational cloud platform that provides a dynamic, three-dimensional virtual environmental model. The building information model (BIM) is linked with the security monitoring, fire alarm, water leak alarm and other operating systems. When an alarm is triggered, the camera associated with that location will connect to the BIM model, so that the problem can be quickly located and handled. The building’s “big data” network establishes equipment classification, operational status, and contract information, giving a real-time picture of the operating systems. Employees can click the equipment model on the smart cloud platform, or scan a QR code on the equipment, to read the pertinent information stored in the BIM database. Additionally, the dynamic virtual environment model can be jointly operated and combined with municipal fire and emergency planning software, and used to rehearse any kind of emergency plan.

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