China‘s opening-up and economic reform measures more than 40 years ago dramatically improved its standing on the world stage. The nation’s economic expansion was significantly fueled by the construction industry, which had an unparalleled pace of urbanization. The American Institute of Architects’ Shanghai Chapter reported that by 2025, China will have constructed the equivalent of 10 New York-sized cities. While these figures represent a fantastic feat of major proportions, it is not without faults. Behind a façade of tall, glistening buildings lies faulty construction practices. While these failings may not have contributed to the most recent real-estate decline, it is important to critically analyze the current shortcomings of the construction industry for China to make significant improvements to the economy and maintain slow, sustainable economic growth.
Issues of Quality vs. Quantity
Prioritizing quantity over quality in the building industry and as a general modernization strategy made sense early in China’s economic expansion. China leveraged its comparatively large population to its advantage to produce goods efficiently and at a low cost. High-quality work can be achieved, if quantity is increased at a large scale. Long-term repetition of the same tasks leads to a natural improvement in efficiency and quality, producing higher-quality output over time. The quantity-over-quality method in China certainly had economic trade-offs at least during early periods of growth. However, this ideology has serious implications for the construction industry and architecture firms. Developers these days demand faster design and construction times so they can quickly move from one project to the next. Developers in project management roles are promoted not for good quality construction but rather for how fast and efficiently they can coerce architects and contractors to finish projects. Architects who do not comply with the demand of fast design schedules risk losing their clients and have no choice but to respond to rapid design schedules.
There is evidence that certain Chinese construction projects involve elements of corruption. Developers and contractors have been known to cut corners in construction costs, such as reducing wall insulation or substituting high-quality finishers for inferior ones and pocketing the difference. In the United States, architects maintain quality control through specifications and review of submittals and shop drawings. This system of checks and balances between the architect, owner, and general contractor is lacking in China. By design, the lack of communication between the architect and owner/contractor allows for corruption to exist in China and leads to poor quality of construction. This has also led to the phenomenon of “Tofu-dreg projects”. In China, this term refers to buildings that were constructed using shoddy methods or techniques, resulting in a poorly executed project. In the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, some “tofu-dregs” replaced steel rods with thin iron wires resulting in the catastrophic collapse of buildings. Fortunately, the structural code of reinforced concrete buildings was greatly tightened after this incident. Although reinforced concrete buildings nowadays will not collapse, “tofu-dreg projects” to this day are ubiquitous because of their reduced lifespan or leakage issues (Rizzardi et al., 2018). The emergence of “tofu-dregs” proves that low-quality construction and fast-paced construction practices are not sustainable for long-term development.
The First Session of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) in March 2023, announced the desire to achieve “high-quality development” to meet a GDP growth goal of 5 percent. As this meeting only shares over-arching principles for local governments to adopt, the exact ways in which the balance between quality and quantity will be implemented is yet to be seen. Interestingly, the NPC message mentions sustainability initiatives like lowering carbon emissions, developing renewable energy technologies, and enacting laws to incentivize businesses to lessen their environmental effect. Although these sustainability measures are important, deeper systemic problems in China’s construction industry must also be addressed. Poor construction and corruption need to be replaced with sustainable building practices.
Government-Tightening Measures
Rapid construction has led to urbanization which is now out of touch with market trends. Property developers now estimate that there is an oversupply of commercial offices and retail malls. To stagnate growth, the government has enacted several policy measures to reduce the pace of construction. For example, in October 2021 the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD) limited the height of buildings to 150 meters in cities with populations of less than 3 million and 250 meters height limit for cities with a population of more than 3 million. Super high-rise buildings were given the ultimate height restriction of 500 meters.
Two recent restrictions have been implemented in Shanghai. The estimated supply of office buildings between 2023 and 2029 is expected to double if ongoing office construction projects are completed. Yet the economic demand for these office buildings has not doubled, becoming a sword of Damocles hanging over Shanghai. Some recently completed office buildings in Shanghai have reported tenant vacancies as high as 40%. The Shanghai government has therefore suspended the approval of new office construction, along with new shopping malls and other commercial projects.
Furthermore, within the Golden Middle Ring Development Belt of Shanghai, the government plans to suspend non-public developments including commercial residential buildings, commercial-purpose projects (i.e. retail), office, R&D, and industrial parks (multi-use office blocks). This restriction affects not only government state-owned projects but also private developers’ projects. With these restrictions in place, the hope is that the rate of new construction will decrease and stabilize the economy. Fortunately, developers and architects are still able to work on other kinds of non-commercial projects such as education, health, sports, and data centers. Existing structures can also be renovated.
The failings of the construction industry laid out in this article only begin to shed light on the major key factors that affect all those involved in the AEC industry. Issues such as fighting corruption, quality management, risk management, and managing clients’ expectations cannot be dealt with by architects alone. All stakeholders in the Chinese construction sector, including architects, owners and/or developers, and contractors, must address these systemic difficulties and reach a mutually agreeable solution.
References:
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