Africa -China Review Africa -China Cooperation and Transformation
Published: November 07,2022
With its towering skyscrapers rising from the desert, the Central Business District (CBD) of the new administrative capital of Egypt can be easily spotted miles away. Over the past four years, a Chinese building company has been striving to turn the CBD project into an example of green urban development.
The project, at the heart of Egypt’s ambitious plan to build a new modern city some 50 km east of the current capital of Cairo, is primarily contracted to the Egyptian branch of the China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC Egypt). “As a key project of the Belt and Road Initiative, it is our responsibility to practice and promote the idea of green development. We hope that the CBD will serve as a model of green development under the initiative,” Yuan Hao, design director of the CSCEC Egypt, told Xinhua.
Since the start of the CBD construction in 2018, the CSCEC Egypt has brought China’s standards for environmental protection to the project, with an aim to make it an exemplary case of green urban development. Yuan noted that eco-friendly concepts have been integrated into the project’s urban planning, architectural design, as well as construction processes. From the beginning of planning, the CBD has been given an efficient public transportation system and pedestrian system, which encourages everyone to take public transportation or walk in order to achieve “green travel,” Yuan explained. A regional energy station was set up to centrally cool CBD’s high-rise buildings, while a thermal tank was also installed to reduce the peak load and improve the utilization rate of electric energy. “In terms of the architectural design, different kinds of concrete are used, which greatly reduces construction energy consumption and improves the thermal insulation performance of the building,” Yuan said.
The CBD project covers an area of about 505,000 square meters, with 20 commercial and residential skyscrapers as well as supporting municipal infrastructure, among which is the 385-meter-high Iconic Tower, the tallest building in Africa. The Chinese company also contributed its extensive experience in green construction to the CBD project, using aluminum molds rather than traditional wooden ones, said Yuan, who added that the new technology has greatly improved the recycling rate of building materials.
A reclaimed water system was set up at the construction site to purify the sewage water and use it for on-site dust removal, irrigation, and vehicle cleaning, the Chinese engineer said. The CSCEC Egypt’s green methodology is in accordance with the Egyptian side’s “green development” idea in building the new administrative capital, said Yuan.
He touted the CBD project as “a shining example of China-Egypt cooperation on green development,” as the Arab country is to host the 27th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) that starts on Nov. 6. “Benefiting from the rapid domestic development, we took the lead in exploring a set of green construction technologies suitable for developing countries that are more pragmatic and have been tested in practice,” Yuan said.
Mohammed Hamdy Salama, an Egyptian mechanical engineer with the CSCEC Egypt, said the company keeps seeking new ideas to save energy. “In our work on the CBD project, we use rock wool to improve the insulation; we also use the double glass facade for all towers. This enhances energy efficiency by reducing the cooling loads inside the buildings,” he said. A thermal tank was also installed to help the chillers work constantly, in addition to using the Building Management System to control all the towers by turning off the lights and other electric equipment after the workers left, Salama said. The Egyptian engineer noted that China always seeks sustainable development by setting plans for five or 10 years, adding that this ideology is also followed by the CSCEC Egypt. “On a personal level, I can see and learn the importance of this ideology, as well as how it affects every single step in the project and how it helps to achieve sustainability,” Salama said.
Xinhua