lesson 15 New Tower Will Celebrate Handover of Macao to China A giant tower will be built on the waterfront at Macao at a very fast pace in time for the December 1999 celebrations marking the Portuguese enclave’s handover to China.
The tower will be built in quick time because of the use of computer-assisted design, and building technology which will allow four meters of tower to be built up every six days.
The technology allows construction workers to set up a platform called a “jump form” with two levels. As the top level is added on, remedial and finishing work continued on the bottom level from a veranda site.
This technology was successfully used to build a Sky Tower in Auckland. New Zealand, ahead of schedule. The architects and engineers who built the New Zealand tower have taken their expertise to Macao. New Zealand architect Gordon Moller, his firm, Craig Craig Moller,and Aukland consulting engineers Beca Group,have formed a joint venture, CCMBeca, for the Macao project, which has been given the go-ahead by the Macao government.
The Macao tower will be 338 meters tall, 10m taller than Sky Tower in Auckland. The height of 338m was a deliberate choice, architect Gordon Molar says, to give the tower good feng shui through the numbers 3 and 8. The tower will taper up 1000 people at a time, compared with 840 for the Sky Tower in Auckland. The tower will be a frontispiece for Macao, as it is set on the Pearl River waterfront on a promontory which is a reclamation area between the Nam Van lakes.
Piling and construction for the raft on which the tower will sit in May 1998, and work on the main building started in July. The exterior will be done in time for the handover of Macao to China on December 20 in 1999, and the entire job will be finished well ahead of millenium celebrations in the year 2000.
The Macao tower is a welcome to mainland China from Stanley Ho, the 76-year-old who owns all Macao’s casinos and the hover-ferries which take an hour to cross from Hong Kong.
Mr. Ho’s company, Siciedade de Tourisme e Diversoes de Macao (STDM), is the client for the New Zealand architects and engineers working on the tower project which will cost $85 million (RMB 380 million).
A local contractor is building the first stage of the Macao tower, with the New Zealand joint venture doing all design work. This includes consultancy on the effect of wind on the high structure. A team from Monash University in Australia who are experts in design and wind forces will be part of the intentional team which will consult in the effects of the elements of such a high structure.
“It’s a sculptural tower. We’ve created a substantial open plaza with a conference center and entertainment center alongside, all integrated,” Mr. Moller says. The Macao tower’s piles go down 50 meters to solid granite foundation under the track that working drawings will still be on the design board as the tower rises.