Beijing Parkview Green

By Liu Xuan

On the east edge of the embassy area around Beijing's Ritan Park, a new building, Parkview Green, with its prominent sloping triangular glass façade, is about to be completed. It's a multi-functional environmentally friendly complex, with shopping on the lower levels, office space on the middle floors, and high-end hotels on top.

Parkview Green has been pre-certified for the first Platinum-level Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) project in China, and with the founder of the US-based Green Building Council's LEED system, Robert K Walton, sitting on Parkview's consulting committee, there is little doubt that it will be fully certified as Platinum.

But cutting-edge green technology is just one of the Parkview Green's features. Artistic and intelligent design features are two more. The building will also serve as a Salvador Dali Museum, where dozens of the surrealist's original works will be displayed on every floor.

The design is human-centered, with natural ventilation, indoor plants, open spaces and curtains and temperature controls that respond to light, time of day and atmosphere.

"In light of respect for humanity and sustainability, Parkview Green is on its own level," said Parkview Executive Director Leo Hwang, "We aim at setting a new market price in the Beijing rental market."

Parkview Green also marks a new step in private developers sharing initiatives with the central government as market demands begin to drive a change towards more eco-friendly building solutions.

More private push

While the driving force in China's green building scene has come from new government regulations, however, the situation is being altered fast. More private company leadership is now pushing the change.

Energy consumption of buildings is huge and growing with the expanding of urbanization in China. The National Reform and Development Commission recently reported "the energy consumed in manufacturing and transporting building materials, constructing homes and offices, and heating and cooling structures represents almost 45 percent of China's total energy use."

The government has vowed to cut building energy use in all cities by 50 percent by 2010, and 65 percent by 2020, using 1980 levels as a baseline.

Kevin Hydes, the chair of World Green Building council, said in an interview with Alex Pasternack in a spring 2008 interview with Treehugger.com, "The US has taken a business-like course; Japan is headed by a fairly academic group led by Shuzo Murakami; while China is definitely government driven … but what we see in China now is that private sector leadership is engaging more in driving the change." Environmentally friendly businesses are inclined to choose green buildings to set up offices, even if it means higher rents.

For example, at the beginning of 2009, Climate Change Capital (CCC) of China moved its office into Prosperous Center, a LEED certified green building. The chairman, Lu YueBing, told Global Times that CCC felt the money was a good investment, because "it has largely increased employees' recognition of our value, and gained higher respect from clients for our integrity."

Long term vision needed

"It's still luxury branding to build an LEED certified green building here", said Judy Zhang, a property manager with Savills Beijing which specializes in commercial and residential real estate services. "To gain LEED certification is still too expensive for most to afford. The emerging of green building in China is the beginning of a profound change, but now it's just at its primitive stage."

Compared to conventional buildings, LEED certificated buildings generally cost 3-5 percent more, but most Chinese developers mistakenly think the cost is almost 30 percent more, according to the research by Geoffery Lewis, an LEED expert on green buildings in China.

What also hinders the developers is their impatience with long-term investments. "The real estate market in China is volatile and lucrative. Everybody is so rushed and fears investing long-term," said Neville Mars, a Dutch architect and architecture critic. "But anything related to green is long-term."

Different from many developers, Parkview Group is a family business, so they are more comfortable with a long range vision, said Hwang.

"My family believed that we are lucky to be producing buildings that stand for a long time. We take pride in our buildings," he said. Founded by a grandfather in Taiwan 50 years ago, the Parkview Group is now known for a list of high profile projects worldwide.

As for Parkview Green, which offers only rentals and no sales, Parkview Group is the property owner forever as far as Hwang is concerned. "It's our own building, and we use the best of everything as we possibly can," he said.

Obstacles and optimism

In addition to costs, another obstacle for green building is the lack of vision and experience. As LEED founder Walton said during his visit to China in 2007, "Green doesn't cost money. New costs money."

"A lot of acclaimed green building now is actually [superficial]," said Mars. "[Developers] just stick some fancy green features on a normal building, like adding some solar panels or a costly roof-top plant, and those cannot really lower the energy and resource consumption.

"A green building must start from a more holistic and integrated design practice," said Mars. "To design a green building [correctly] means requiring designers and engineers to work from a new model, more closely and in a more integrated way, with the support from the developer."

But China can learn quickly. "You only learn by doing. China is doing more than anyone else in the world," said Hydes. "Chinese can borrow ideas from anybody, bring in partners from around the world and as they build more buildings, they learn more from the international community very quickly."