Boats, sails, water, the picture of the ancient canal is vividly displayed in front of the capital museum (East Hall) located in the green heart of the city. Today, with the evacuation of heavy tower cranes and the dismantling of the outer steel frame, the Capital Museum (East Hall), known as the "Canal Boat", has entered the final stage of exterior decoration and roofing, and the roof of the main building of the museum shaped like a sail, the audience sharing hall like a wooden boat and the sparkling glass façade like flowing water have been fully revealed, waiting for the day when the sails set sail.
Walking into the construction site, workers are standing on a high curved arm car to secure and seal the glass of the museum's façade. Behind them were six towering fusiform columns, a massive roof that held up a "sail" shape like a giant wheel mast.
The entire façade will be completed by the end of May. Beijing Daily client reporter Pan Zhiwang /photo
"These six pillars are not simple!" Jia Chengliang, project manager of the Capital Museum of Beijing Urban Construction Group, the construction party, introduced that each shuttle-shaped column is 58 meters long and weighs 50 tons, with a thick middle and two thin ends, the diameter of the thickest place is 1.5 meters, and the diameter of the thinnest place is 0.7 meters. In order to send such a huge fusiform column to the proper position, the project chose a 350-ton tracked car crane rarely seen in general engineering to complete this "heavy" task.
At the same time, due to the thermal expansion and contraction characteristics of the steel structure, the junction between the shuttle column and the roof "sail" is not completely welded, but uses articulation to leave room for the change of the steel structure and ensure its durability. "Not only the fusiform columns, but all the beams, components, and curtain walls in the museum are articulated, which is very difficult to construct." Jia Chengliang said that the error at the junction of more than ten meters long giant components cannot exceed 1 mm, and when high precision meets large weight and large volume, the difficulty of construction will also increase exponentially.
The mast stands and the sails are raised. The roof of the main building of the museum is composed of 5 curved "sails", and the streamlined shape looks simple and coordinated, but none of the 2802 pieces of glass covering the roof are duplicates. "The curved design of the roof gives each piece of glass a unique shape and the light transmittance is not exactly the same." Jia Chengliang introduced that the roof of the main building of the museum uses stained glass with different light transmittances of 40%, 60% and 80%, and the sunlight sprinkles on it with colorful and beautiful colors. However, good looks are only one aspect, the glass at the junction of the curved surface and the arc surface is a photovoltaic glass that can generate electricity, and will also provide electricity for the interior lighting of the museum in the future.
The interior mechanical, electrical, pipeline and decoration of the First Bo East Pavilion will be constructed simultaneously, and the overall project is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
Next to the main building of the museum is the audience sharing hall, which is connected by an overhead corridor and an underground exhibition gallery. The roof of the audience sharing hall is composed of about 9300 wood grain decorative aluminum panels, which look like quaint wood, but are actually durable aluminum metal, and due to the special shape, these aluminum plates are not exactly the same. Their combination forms have also been innovated, abandoning the original plan of tiles, using a tile-like structure, one on top of the other, and carefully selecting 3 different shades of wood grain colors, and the ancient charm is cleverly created.
In the future, a water street will also be laid between the main building of the museum and the audience sharing hall, and the water system will be connected to the Tongzhou Grand Canal. Water is connected, the color is the same rhyme, this embedded in the urban forest "ancient rhyme sail", before the end of May will complete all the finishing work of the façade, indoor mechanical and electrical, pipeline, decoration will be synchronous construction, the overall project will be completed at the end of this year, the public in the sub-center to visit the large museum is just around the corner.