The development of cities, especially large cities, is changing from "expansion" to "renewal". In this transformation, the progress of the renewal concept, the particularity of the renewal stage and the complexity of the renewal problem all require that the ability of the main body and participants of urban renewal must be upgraded to a higher level.
In response to this trend, COOC has a deep insight into the following key capabilities of urban renewal: creativity, resource integration ability, project management ability, capital operation ability and industry introduction ability.
These five capabilities form the core architecture of activating old projects and promoting the deeper practice of urban renewal. As we have emphasized, "urban renewal is the integration of in-depth insight and comprehensive implementation", and only with the joint efforts of these five aspects can we truly awaken the innovative potential of urban renewal and give new life to old buildings.
Li Xuerui, Senior Director of China Shipping Commercial Office Asset Management Center
Through its unremitting practice, COOC has become an outstanding interpreter of this concept.
A preliminary study of the urban renewal track
COOC China Overseas Commerce's earliest exploration of urban renewal is the upgrading and transformation of the China Overseas Fortune Center project located in the hinterland of Beijing's Financial Street.
The project was built in 2008, and in 2018, after 10 years of operation, we upgraded it from a Grade B office building to the first single-family vertical business office complex in the Financial Street area.
In the process of renovating this project, the team worked backwards from the needs to create an office aggregate product that was unique to the financial street at that time, which could meet the needs of the high-end financial industry in the regional market, and could provide a full range of smart supporting facilities and full-time operation services.
Project Case: Beijing Zhonghai Fortune Center
Internationally, COOC undertook the renovation and operation of 61 Aldwych in London, UK, which is adjacent to the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Royal Court and Bush House (the former headquarters of the BBC).
Project Case 61 Aldwych, London, UK
After the renovation, this building, which was built in the First World War, was upgraded to a Grade A office building, and through the introduction of corporate headquarters such as finance, law, and media, this building full of a sense of the times that has witnessed historical changes will once again be rejuvenated and integrated into the trend of the times.
ADVANCED URBAN RENEWAL: THE COMPLEX AGGREGATE CAME INTO BEING
On December 30, 2021, China Shipping China Label made an appointment with the Sichuan Building Commercial Office Aggregation Project in the core area of the capital, positioning itself to create a flagship benchmark office product for the symbiosis of finance and technology. After nearly two years of renovation, the project revisited everyone under the name of "Beijing Zhonghai Business Center".
This is the latest practical result of COOC's latest urban renewal, and it also allows us to think more deeply about the renewal and iteration of commercial office space.
Project Case: Beijing Zhonghai Business Center
Today's business world is agglomerate, the boundary between office and business is broken, the boundary between business and business is dissolved, and the COMPLEX of China Overseas Business Center is born.
What is an aggregate?
The first gathering: the community cohesion spirit of urban renewal.
I believe that the core element of urban organic renewal is to integrate into the ecosystem of the entire city and community, so as to stimulate the vitality of the city. In previous projects, we focused on the renovation of a single building, and did not involve the renewal of neighborhoods or precincts. But in the Sichuan Tower project, our perspective has changed radically.
We realize that we are no longer acting in isolation, but as part of a mature, traditional ecosystem. In this system, we are not only living in our own buildings, but also in the properties of many surrounding owners. Therefore, our priority is no longer to focus solely on the building itself, but on how to successfully integrate our characters into the ecosystem of this urban precinct.
The urban renewal we are doing is to build a new link field and reconstruct the trust of community users with the value of the scene. We are not only providing physical space, but also creating more commercial opportunities for tenants and encouraging them to actively participate in the common urban renewal process. This approach not only improves the physical environment, but also fosters interaction and cooperation among community members, creating a more vibrant urban atmosphere.
The second gathering: the aggregation and symbiosis of multiple business formats.
In the 29,000-square-meter commercial body, we have made five types of products: office building, hardcover office, single-family office, exquisite business, and HUI International Conference Center, so that office users can realize the scene cycle in the space. This kind of multi-format inclusiveness, symbiosis, and chemical effect has formed a borderless business scenario, thus achieving the optimal allocation of assets.
In order to connect the five business formats, the biggest transformation this time is actually to reshape the transportation system. The escalators of the original department store were demolished, so that the office building, hardcover office, and single-family office all have an independent vertical transportation system, and at the same time, through multiple experimental simulations, the overall plan was planned to weaken the impact of the dense column network.
For example, the B3 conference center was originally not equipped with the conditions for medium and large conferences, but in the design, we broke the conventional circulation line and implanted a polyline design, and the combination configuration of large and small meeting spaces realized the possibility of multi-scene meetings.
The third aggregation: the aggregation of the ecological chain.
Urban renewal is not a nodal work, but a process of continuous renewal. In the process, we have fully witnessed the renewal of traditional brands and the birth of new brands, including technology, catering, buyers, cultural and creative, national tide, finance, education and other industries. China Overseas Business Center is working with the managers of COMPLEX to do a business experiment bravely and fearlessly, tell a good story for national brands, and provide new business users with better work and life proposals.
COOC has been committed to building an ecological chain for many years, helping settled enterprises to expand their business, build trading platforms, reduce transaction costs, and integrate resources in a higher dimension has become an inevitable choice for future strategies.
B-end enterprises can use our platform "exoskeleton" to effectively control the marginal cost of the enterprise, fully reduce the cost and risk of labor, administration, procurement, consulting, agency and other aspects, and invest all valuable resources in the growth and development of their main business;
The C-end white-collar workers will also use the "super entrance" of our platform to access the colorful business life of catering, retail, fashion, art, cultural tourism and other colorful business life with one click.
Through in-depth research and prediction of tenants' needs, we have preliminarily built six major industrial supporting and asset management collaborative services that are "B-side oriented and C-end", including financial and taxation services, legal consulting services, policy consulting/agency, targeted talent services, intellectual property services and information construction services.
China Overseas Commerce's consistently high entry threshold for tenant qualifications and supply chain system has virtually helped tenants complete the inspection, product selection, bidding and warehousing of resource parties, and achieved the pre-screening process, improving tenant efficiency and reducing business costs. Relying on the massive resources of "innate excellent + acquired selection", we achieve two-way transparency and traceability of supply and demand, and are committed to providing tenants with the highest quality, most stable and most abundant choices in high-end industry and asset management services.
Urban renewal innovation: low-carbon digital intelligence
The ecological chain of the huge system must be realized through digital intelligence.
In the two-way rush between the digital twin and the offline scene personality, the digital human provides 7 times 24 hours of uninterrupted but repetitive and simple consulting services, while the real person operation officer provides temperature services with emotional companionship value. AIGC opens a new cycle of business scenario flow, while offline scenarios provide a stable, trusted, and warm service closed-loop. The combination of the two is a new experience of business office. Based on the mature digital intelligence research of COOC Zhonghai Business for many years, the integration of office IoT has been further improved, and more than 30 scenarios can be realized for office IoT.
Digital intelligence has also promoted low-carbon development.
As we all know, our project is a commercial office, and the first thing to solve is the lighting problem of the office. We adjusted the window-to-wall ratio of the curtain wall and chose recyclable clay stone + ultra-clear LOW-E glass. LOW-E glass is characterized by high light transmittance and good thermal insulation, which can effectively reduce the energy consumption of indoor air conditioning.
Energy consumption is the most important issue facing commercial buildings to achieve low-carbon emissions, and China Overseas Business Center adopts photovoltaic power generation technology to convert solar energy into electricity through solar panels, realizing the self-sufficiency of power supply for the building. At the same time, we have also adopted the technology of solar energy storage and direct flexibility, which converts solar energy into electricity during the day, stores the remaining electric energy, and reuses it at night, so as to achieve better use of energy
The project adopts VRV air conditioning, which not only realizes the possibility of turning on the air conditioner 24 hours a day, but also greatly reduces the user's overtime air conditioning cost. What's more worth mentioning is that the fresh air system adopts a heat recovery function, which can preheat the outdoor cold air through heat recovery indoor heat, which can also achieve efficient energy-saving effects.
In the project, we pioneered the carbon credit system, the air conditioning of our project office space is turned on from 9 am to 6 in the evening, but today I have a job and can't come to the office, I can click to turn off the office air conditioner through the APP of China Overseas Business Center, and I save a day's air conditioning energy consumption, which can be exchanged for my personal carbon credits.
As you accumulate carbon credits, you can redeem them for services in the building, such as meeting room hours, and you can also redeem a cup of coffee or a bouquet of flowers at commercial stores that support our carbon credit redemption.
As the operator of the building, after work, we will enter the management background, through the sensor can detect whether each room is occupied, for the unmanned room, the staff in the background can help turn off the lights and air conditioning, to achieve the goal of energy saving. This is called flexible control technology.
COOC believes that the future development trend of urban renewal lies in the dual guidance of green innovation and warm operation, which not only represents a profound commitment to ecological sustainability, but also reflects a delicate attention to the ultimate scene experience and community cohesion.
Brief summary:
From the renovation of a single building to the construction of aggregates, to the in-depth integration of community renewal and ecological chain, as well as the practice of low-carbon digitalization, COOC has never stopped exploring urban renewal, but what has always remained unchanged is the company's attention to urban development, innovation and leadership in the field of commercial and office work, and more importantly, full enthusiasm for the development of innovative business.
As mentioned in COOC's COMPLEX Discovery Manager Program, "Gathering is a fire, scattered into a sky full of stars, and only love can resist the long years".
In the future, as a leader in urban renewal, COOC will continue to deepen its practice, explore more effective and sustainable renewal strategies, and contribute to the progress of the city.
(Xuerui Li is the Senior Director of China Shipping Commercial Asset Management Center, and this article is compiled from his speech at the 8th China Real Estate Asset Management Summit 2023)