Site Visits

June 19, 2019

Site Visit 1

We had an early start to get to our first Chinese site visit. It was a $1.8 billion yuan shopping mall, apartments, and parking complex. Project duration is 6 years and on track to be completed in 2021.

The project will be about 400,000 SF with 150,000 SF below ground and 250,000 SF above ground. We learned a lot about the labor force. The company basically uses a temp agency to hire their workers for each project. Workers live on site and get paid around 100-380 yuan ($15-$54) a day. They work 10 hour days, and often they work in shifts so the site is always running. At the peak, there were 1200-1400 workers living on site. However, the project currently only has about 400 workers living on site.

The project was also government owned. The government has about 8 different construction companies, and is ranked in the top 500 companies in the world. Last year, they did 1.18 trillion yuan in contracts. This contract had an original bid of 3.2 billion yuan, but the bidding was so competitive, they ended up bidding 1.8 billion yuan.

Site Visit 2

The second site was another shopping mall project. This one was a little small and will have 7 floors above ground and 3 floors below ground. When digging, it's common for Chinese soil to hit water at 3 feet, so the foundation systems are extensive. This project is about 2.5 years and only has 6 months left. We were all a little taken back to hear that. It seemed like they had a lot to do in 6 months, but the site is running 7 days a week. Workers can take a day off, but work will always be happening.

The project is 560 million yuan and they have about 500 workers living on site. They get paid 300-400 yuan a day at this site, and they get free housing and the ability to buy food from an on site cafeteria. The work force is a bout 10% women in the field and 20% of the management team is female. This surprised me too. It seems high compared to what I've seen in the U.S. I counted the number of women I saw on site, and it was more than I was expecting.

One thing I thought was really interesting, was the management teams outfits. This man was the most dressed up. Most of the people were super casual wearing a t-shirt, sweatpants, and sneakers. I also didn't see a single pair of work boots. All the workers were wearing sneakers.

Holy Food

We went to this really fancy restaurant for dinner. It was funny because the restaurant was so cool and high class it made you forget it was in a mall. At home the fanciest restaurant I've seen in a mall is TGIF's.

The food was so good and endless. They just kept bringing more and more and putting it on a lazy Susan in the middle. I really liked this fried fish they had and the pork dumplings. It was so nice they had everything Auburn and Building Science labeled. On the table our logo was written out in sand, and our dessert had a BSCI label as well.

Shanghai Tower

We ended our busy day going to Shanghai Tower. It's the tallest building in the world at just over 2,000 feet. The first little part you walk through shows all the tallest buildings and then the buildings under construction. In the near future Shanghai Tower will be the fourth tallest. They also had a replica of the Freedom Tower because it's at the 6th tallest right now. We took an elevator up 120 floors to the observatory levels. There were amazing views. I was really glad we went at night because you could see the whole city lit up.