[ARTICLE] Glumac Establishes our Newest Office in Shanghai

by Quinnie Li, Sustainable Design Manager

Glumac's Shanghai Office

After half a decade of business and project experience in Asia, Glumac established its tenth office in Shanghai in 2010 and is now relocating to our new office building in the Jing’an Temple District, one of the most vibrant central business districts in Shanghai. This office will serve as a central location for expanding our business ventures in the Asian market—including China, Japan, South Korea, India and Vietnam.

While keeping short-term risks and long-term challenges in mind, many international design consulting firms, like Glumac, are moving into this fast-growing market. Until recently, piecemeal adoption of green technology, lack of an experienced and systematic approach, and the boilerplate “production line” methodology of local design firms driven by a fast real estate growth market contributed to a longer payback period for many aspects of “green” building: products, design and construction.

Though China had already introduced its own green building technology guidelines (including evaluation standards, provincial and local regulations, funds for green technology research and application, tax incentives and pilot green projects), ecological development in China is still in its infancy. Thus, many see enormous opportunities ahead in the green building market niche.

With the latest “Five-Year Plan” passing in 2011, the Chinese government is now working to achieve sustainable growth by reducing carbon emissions by 40-45% before 2020. Additionally, they are promoting energy efficiency in new construction and energy retrofits for existing buildings. These “Five-Year Plans” address economic development guidelines from the central government, often shaping and rebalancing the overall Chinese economy. Given this new green direction, we are seeing many projects in the areas of education, healthcare, city/regional planning, and existing building renewal slowly opening up to more sustainable design and operations.  

China has also seen two green building certification programs gain hold over recent years. Following the introduction of previous international green building certification programs in China—HK-BEAM (HK) in 1996, LEED (US) in 2000, CASBEE (Japan) in 2002, Green Building Design Label Three Star (China) in 2006, BREEAM (UK) in 2009 and DGNB (Germany) in 2009 – it has become apparent that LEED and Three Star are here to stay. Glumac is currently working as the sustainable design consultant on a large (61,462 sm/ 661,571 sf) development project in Shanghai, where achieving both LEED Platinum and Three Star certifications are major goals.

The mixed-use project is being developed by Shui On Land, one of the most prominent and influential high-end developers in China. We are working with the owner and design team in reaching their sustainability and certification goals. We have also been key in bridging green building technologies from the U.S with those that have already been in use in Asia. The project has been successfully utilizing advanced energy analysis and daylighting software tools to influence optimal design decisions, including orientation, building geometry, envelope and shading devices.

Shui On includes a carefully designed facade screen to protect the basic “glass box” with a 50% window ratio that allows ample daylight, reduces glare and provides generous views for occupants. The high-performance building envelope and building systems are designed to perform 33% better than the baseline of ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2007 and 40% better than current Shanghai code requirements. The project is designed to save 800 tons of carbon emissions each year, which is equivalent to an offset of 4,000 trees per year. The project is also designed to save over 28 million liters (7 million gallons) of water by adopting storm water collection, advanced irrigation systems, gray water recycling and low-flow water fixtures. Important to occupant comfort and operational efficiency, the building is designed with advanced temperature and humidity controls, outside air exchange and daylighting.

Hundreds of similar, high-quality green projects are now emerging and changing the built environment in China. More than 200 of the planned 269 new cities in the next decade will set targets for sustainability. It is anticipated that a new skyscraper will “top out” every five days for the next three years. Furthermore, the construction industry is expanding into many second-tier cities. Glumac looks forward to being part of the design community leading China into the global forefront as one of the most sustainable nations in the world.