State inspectors in Shenzhen, China, have found at least 15 local plants producing concrete with unprocessed sea sand. Thirty-one companies have been cited for violations, and eight were ordered to suspend business for a year. Construction on multiple projects in Guangdong Province—including the 660-m Ping'an Finance Center—has been halted during the inspection. (Only 80 meters of the Ping'an building has been erected so far; China Construction First Building Group Corp. Ltd. is the primary contractor.)
Unprocessed sea sand is illegal to use as an aggregate in concrete because its chlorine and salt content are corrosive to steel, causing buildings to degrade and potentially collapse within a few decades. River sand, the preferred material, costs twice as much and is in short supply.
The scandal is currently confined to Shenzhen but could spread to other cities given the obvious financial incentives for using sea sand. Inspectors also found that two large sand pits were using seawater instead of fresh water to rinse sand, also a problematic practice.
Industry experts express particular concern because China currently has nine of the putative 20 tallest buildings in the world currently under construction, as well as many other skyscrapers.
(http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1191896/shenzhen-construction-hold-after-alert-over-cheap-sand-concrete)
Related Stories
| Oct 4, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Awards Silver Winner: Allen Theatre at PlayhouseSquare, Cleveland, Ohio
The $30 million project resulted in three new theatres in the existing 81,500-sf space and a 44,000-sf contiguous addition: the Allen Theatre, the Second Stage, and the Helen Rosenfeld Lewis Bialosky Lab Theatre.
| Oct 4, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Awards Gold Winner: Wake Forest Biotech Place, Winston-Salem, N.C.
Reconstruction centered on Building 91.1, a historic (1937) five-story former machine shop, with its distinctive façade of glass blocks, many of which were damaged. The Building Team repointed, relocated, or replaced 65,869 glass blocks.
| Oct 4, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Awards Gold Winner: Rice Fergus Miller Office & Studio, Bremerton, Wash.
Rice Fergus Miller bought a vacant and derelict Sears Auto and converted the 30,000 gsf space into the most energy-efficient commercial building in the Pacific Northwest on a construction budget of around $100/sf.
| Oct 4, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Award Platinum Winner: Building 1500, Naval Air Station Pensacola Pensacola, Fla.
The Building Team, led by local firms Caldwell Associates Architects and Greenhut Construction, had to tackle several difficult problems to make the historic building meet current Defense Department standards having to do with anti-terrorism, force protection, blast-proofing, and progressive collapse.
| Oct 4, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Awards Platinum Winner: City Hall, New York, N.Y.
New York's City Hall last received a major renovation nearly a century ago. Four years ago, a Building Team led by construction manager Hill International took on the monumental task of restoring City Hall for another couple of hundred years of active service.
| Oct 4, 2012
BD+C's 29th Annual Reconstruction Awards
Presenting 11 projects that represent the best efforts of distinguished Building Teams in historic preservation, adaptive reuse, and renovation and addition projects.
| Oct 4, 2012
Electronic power tool builds project transparency
As building projects have grown in scope and complexity, so, too, has the task of document management. A new online tool is helping Building Teams meet that demand.
| Oct 4, 2012
HMC Architects in service to the community
HMC employees give back to their communities through toy drives and fundraising efforts like CANstruction, which benefits local food banks.
| Oct 4, 2012
Career development, workplace environment programs key to retention at HMC Architects
Architecture firm take a multifaceted approach to professional development.
| Oct 4, 2012
Foundation tightens HMC Architects bond with local communities
Founded in 2009 with an initial endowment of $1.9 million, HMC’s nonprofit Designing Futures Foundation (DFF) has donated about $230,000 in its three years of existence, including $105,000 in scholarships to California students. The grants help promising high schoolers with an interest in architecture, design, engineering, education, or healthcare pay for expenses like test preparation services, computers, and college entrance exam fees and tuition. The scholarships can be extended for up to five years of college.
