Chapter 20 CBD dream

In the mid-1990s, I traveled to Europe, America, Australia, and Asia with curious eyes, and saw La Défense in Paris, Shinjuku in Japan, Raffles Place in Singapore, Wall Street in the United States, and Hong Kong. Central.The high-rise buildings are very attractive, I was told: this is the CBD. When will Beijing have such a building?When will the CBD, the face of Beijing's modernization, be formed?What can we do in building Beijing's CBD?With thinking about these issues, we formed the original idea of ​​building a modern city.In the planned area of ​​Beijing CBD, we built Beijing Erguotou Distillery into today's modern city.The past few years of construction have made our lives full and tense.The construction of Beijing CBD in the past five years is closely related to our ideal, work and company performance.For five years we have been thinking, how can the houses we build absorb the fruits of technological progress?How do the houses we build adapt to the market?I feel that the era of a new economy has arrived!When the 21st century was about to enter, I discovered an interesting phenomenon: a large number of students who returned from overseas and called themselves "sea turtles" suddenly changed from being depressed in the past and became enthusiastic.Whether they're at the dinner table, in a coffee shop, or in our living room, they all gushed about one topic: the Internet.At first, whenever they had a good conversation in half Chinese and half English, I went to bed first, but then I felt something was wrong.When these "sea turtles" returned to China a few years ago, they were disheartened and claimed to set up a "Zhu Bajie Club", because people in foreign countries said they were Chinese, and people in China said they were foreigners who did not understand China's national conditions. It's like Zhu Bajie looking in the mirror-it's not human inside and out. How did the "network" change them so much?Soon, I found that TV and newspapers were talking about the same topic: "Internet".The world is changing so fast, I realized that I have to go outside to see how far the new economy brought by the "Internet" is from us?Taking advantage of the Spring Festival holiday, we set off from Beijing to London, Boston, New York, San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Tokyo, and circled the globe. The biggest discovery is that people all over the world are talking about the same topic: the Internet.

"Internet" has changed the world, changed people's food, clothing, housing and transportation, and will definitely change the development of our cities and the buildings around us.In fact, our world itself exists in the form of "network", but due to the unsmooth flow of information, there are imbalances and differences.In order to be able to operate in a situation where information is not smooth, society can only be divided into many levels, forming a pyramid structure.The development of information technology has enabled a more equal network society to show its prototype.The emergence of network technology eliminates redundant intermediate links in the traditional economy, optimizes various resources, and reduces the waste that people are accustomed to in the traditional economy.

In the traditional economy, when the commodity economy develops to the extreme, every cell of the social economy - the internal organization of the enterprise is tight, the efficiency is gradually improving, and the internal operation of the enterprise can be optimized.However, while producing a large amount of material wealth, due to the failure to solve information and knowledge sharing and the failure to optimize resources, the whole society is in a state of blindness and confusion, with production backlogs, increased inventories, and many intermediate links. Many commodities such as food and medicine , due to time failure, resulting in a lot of waste, forming a blow to the economy.Nearly 100 years ago, Marx believed that overproduction of capitalism would lead to economic crisis, and the solution was to take the road of socialist planned economy.In the era of underdeveloped information and networks, countless demand and supply information cannot be processed and optimized in a short period of time.Today's Internet economy is about to solve the difficult problems that people have been thinking about for 100 years.When we see the ORACLE function, I am more convinced of this, let us repeat the company's advertising words here: "Either implement e-commerce, or there is no business."

Of course, in the initial stage of the application of network technology, there were also some fanaticism and bubbles. For example, in the traditional economy, one yuan can do things, but in order to use network technology, it costs one yuan and two.These are all adding intermediate links in the traditional economy and going astray.But we see more savings, optimization, cost reduction and efficiency improvement.For example: A car transportation company in the United States used network technology to reduce the empty load rate of cars from 50% to 5%.There is a website that sells books all over the world, and it can be delivered within 24 hours in the United States.Some people found that there were still empty seats before the plane took off, and the tickets were not sold out when the movie started, but they were all settled online at the last minute... A new economic era has arrived.

In the traditional economy, people are divided into classes according to the amount of information, capital and power.The city is also divided into different areas according to different functions, such as industrial areas, residential areas, education areas, office areas, etc.In the traditional economy, people go to and from get off work every day rain or shine, transport themselves to the workplace by means of transportation every morning, and transport their tired bodies to the place of residence by means of transportation every evening. This is how many years we have repeated the "going up get off work".In the new economy, our jobs have been digitized, and jobs that cannot be digitized have been gradually transferred to small cities and township enterprises.With a smooth information network, it is no longer people who move back and forth, but work. Compared with moving people, moving work is faster, more economical, and more comfortable.People can finish your work in any corner of the world in a timely manner.Tian Suning, the president of China Netcom, called the new economy China "Online China". He predicted that in five years, China's Internet device users will reach 200-300 million, and one person may own several Internet terminals. China will become the world's The number of Internet users in the world is second only to the United States.Such an online China will greatly enhance the country's core competitiveness and make China's overall economic benefits unprecedentedly improved.At the same time, it will completely change the way of life and work of people, especially in large and medium-sized cities.

Some people predict that there will be no non-Internet companies in the near future, because any commercial operation in the new economy cannot do without the support of the Internet.In the new economy, the division of city functions and housing functions will definitely change with the advent of the Internet age.The Internet will change people's concept of work, and we should re-examine the functions of houses and offices; the Internet will change people's shopping habits, and we should re-examine the functions of shopping malls, warehouses, and residences. We make buildings, and buildings make us; we make networks, and networks make us.In the traditional economy, especially when the capitalist economy has developed to a certain extent and the commercial society has developed to the extreme, architecture has become a symbol of wealth.The taller the building, the more money it means. It is the same psychology as women comparing the size of diamonds and men comparing the size of cars.Under the conditions allowed by technology, the competition of wealth has gradually led to the competition of buildings.The Rockefeller Center in the United States once became the commanding height for the capitalists of the United States and Japan to compete for, attracting countless heroes to compete, and making many capitalists go bankrupt.Whoever owned the Rockefeller Center back then had glory and dreams.In recent years, the height of buildings has begun to shift from Europe and the United States to Asia. The grand hotel in North Korea, because it is too large, opened the lower half first, and the upper half has not been completed for many years.After the completion of Malaysia's Petroleum Twin Towers, I don't know if the decision makers regretted it.In the new network economy, people will change the psychological culture of comparing high, big and honor, and replace it with the spirit of innovation, individuality, equality and sharing in the network.A city with personality is a beautiful city, and a building with personality is a beautiful building.

There is a SOHO district in New York, which used to be factories and warehouses many years ago, and now it has become the most individual, the most avant-garde, and the favorite place for young people to live in.At present, in California, the old warehouse "LOFT" with large space and high degree of freedom has become the most sought-after property. Even in the world, warehouses that can be freely played and transformed at will have become the coolest architectural form. Once, the CEO of Oxygen.com (oxygen.com), the largest women’s website in the United States, had dinner with us. They proudly introduced that their company’s office used to be a Nabisco biscuit factory, with a space of up to 35 feet. How natural and comfortable it is to work in this space.We visited a number of dotcom companies in New York and San Francisco, most of them based in former factories.

More and more big-name recording engineers and singers are competing to decorate their studios with personality.Canadian pop star Bryan Adams has converted an abandoned industrial building into his "warehouse studio".It is difficult for outsiders to guess that the interior of this dilapidated brick wall is a world-class recording studio.The famous Japanese music producer Tetsuya Komuro's studio in Hawaii was converted from a restaurant. The Internet age is an era without authority and trends. The most notable feature is that there is no longer a unified model and no clear boundaries. Whether it is work or life, it is the pursuit of absolute freedom and arbitrary choices. Creativity is paramount and there is no program. Personalized personalization is the most attractive.Innovation has become an essential spirit in the new economy.Many repetitive jobs in the traditional economy are quickly replaced by computers. For example, the most creative job design in the traditional economy is basically replaced by computer design (CAD) in the new economy.Therefore, in the new economy, if any person or organization is restricted by the rules and regulations of the traditional economy and has no sense of innovation, it will soon be eliminated.

Houses are "big clothes" that must conform to human behavior. As people's life and work behaviors change in the new economy, the houses we build should also change.We are in such an era today, and we have to adapt to this era when we build houses.If we simply imitate other people's experience and copy it bluntly, we will definitely not be able to build a good house.Network technology has made living space and office space intertwined like ribbons in modern houses, and as the two increasingly merge, the boundaries between building types are increasingly blurred and diluted.

In Silicon Valley in the United States, some Internet companies make their offices look like a restaurant, with whiteboards all around the walls, and they can write on the walls as soon as they get inspiration. A restaurant in Beijing called "New York Music Kitchen" can also be used as a karaoke hall, dance hall, and movie theater. While enjoying delicious food, you can also enjoy music, dancing, and big screens. You can also improvise at any time.The store is no longer the traditional one where you buy and sell.Part of the shopping needs are realized on the Internet through online purchases. When the refrigerators and wardrobes in our homes are full, the entertainment of shopping has risen to the first need.In order to attract customers, foreign merchants are constantly launching new tricks. Stores such as SU214 in Oxford Street in the UK, Sony in New York, and NikeTown in Chicago are now not only shopping, but also have impressive "views", which have become must-see places for tourists.In the UK, many gas stations have become places for shoppers to store their belongings for the convenience of shoppers; in Sweden, a new experiment is even more interesting: developers are building houses in the suburbs, and they will place a large refrigerator at each door. , you can purchase as much as you want in the store, enjoy the joy of spending money, and don’t have to worry about carrying it. You can leave lightly. The store will arrange the logistics company to deliver the goods to your door. There is no need for anyone to wait at home. It's in the fridge.Someone joked that in the future, all the people walking on the road will be people from the logistics company.

A friend of mine runs a successful eTranslate.com in San Francisco, USA. There are only more than 80 people in the company's headquarters, but there are more than 20,000 people scattered all over the world. The boss can't name the company's employees, but he can guarantee every When a task is reached, the relevant information will be conveyed as quickly as possible and completed in a very short time. Only in the Internet age can we enjoy the beauty of smooth information. The original face of a city is a network structure, but under the traditional economic system where information dissemination is restricted, only a part of its commercial functions can be drawn out and gathered together, thus forming a central business district with the most dense population and prosperity in the city , referred to as CBD (CenterBusinessDistrict). CBD originated in the big cities of capitalist developed countries, and is an inevitable trend in the development of financial capital in developed capitalist countries.The development of the industrial revolution to a certain extent promotes the development of financial capital to occupy a commanding position. The development of banking, securities, insurance, consulting, service and other industries promotes the development of the tertiary industry. With the increasing frequency of information processing and the needs of business offices and Customers communicate face to face, and the CBD gradually takes shape.It can be said that "CBD is formed naturally with the development of the economy, rather than planned by planners or architects in advance." (Zou Deci) In the traditional CBD, large companies, large banks, securities companies, insurance companies, company headquarters, government Departments gather, office buildings stand everywhere, and supporting hotels and shopping malls are dotted among them. The CBD is like the tip of a pyramid, standing proudly in the center of a city, while factories or residential areas that have nothing to do with business are far away from this place.As a result, around the world, from New York, London to Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Singapore, more and more urban patterns that we are familiar with have emerged - towering buildings, dense traffic networks, luxurious hotels, and lively shopping malls. , well-dressed white-collar workers.Singapore’s CBD is very typical. In order to improve the functions of the central business district, the government moved the school out of this area, the parking lot was continuously compressed, the green space was reduced, and the walking area was set aside to increase the density of business people.Traditional CBD is a symbol of capital and wealth, power and prestige.For example, New York's CBD is concentrated in Manhattan, and Wall Street is the core of Manhattan. To be able to locate the company's headquarters in Manhattan, where every inch of land is expensive, is definitely a symbol of the company's financial strength and power. Due to the high land price in the traditional CBD, the architectural image is mostly high-rise and high-density.With the increasingly fierce competition for wealth, it has become fashionable to compare the "tall" and "big" of buildings.Everyone knows the story of Hong Kong HSBC and Bank of China "competing for heights". The Jinmao Tower in Shanghai, China was not far behind, and later became the tallest, overlooking the world.This fashion has also resulted in a rigid and cold architectural image in the traditional CBD, lack of green space, lack of open space, and lack of human touch. During the construction of CBDs around the world, successful CBDs have promoted the development of the local economy, where communication is convenient, business opportunities have increased, and a large number of merchants have been attracted.At the same time, the vacancy rate of houses is not high, and the rent level is not low, such as the CBD of Singapore and the CBD of some cities in California.But there are also some failure examples. Not only did they not promote the development of the urban economy, but they hindered the economy. Businesses were unwilling to enter, the vacancy rate of houses was high, and the rent level was low.Such as La Défense in Paris and Lujiazui in Pudong, Shanghai.La Défense was planned by the government for the purpose of building the CBD. The purpose is to draw out the people in Paris, but the people in the city just don’t want to come out. After a few years, it is still deserted; Shanghai built Lujiazui in Pudong. , trying to lure people from Puxi across the river, but people just don't want to cross the river, and the vacancy rate of office buildings is still high. What is the difference between good and bad CBD?A good CBD should be a 24-hour area that shines as brightly in the night as in the daytime, and has complete functions, including food, housing, office and entertainment.A bad CBD is the area from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, which has a single function and is just a simple office building.Housing space, roads, and parking lots are unbalanced, and of course they will not be popular. So under the new economy, is it necessary for CBD to exist? Is the existence of CBD against the spirit of the Internet?Let's look at the popularity of the telephone.In the early 1970s, when the telecommunications revolution was gaining momentum, some urbanists predicted that urban centers would soon disintegrate.But in the 1980s and 1990s, the predicted results did not appear. The face-to-face communication between people did not decrease because of the popularization of telephones, but increased. So some people said: the theory is correct, but it is underestimated. Human inertia.Will the emergence of the Internet not reduce people's face-to-face interactions like the popularization of the telephone?Although people in the network information age use satellite communication, Internet and other information technology communication (table to table) to replace part of face to face (face to face) communication, but because a large amount of information is more averaged and not aimed at a specific user, Therefore, more and more large enterprises or individuals still focus on the central business district with the highest information density in order to quickly and correctly select the most appropriate information.In other words, the development of information and communication cannot replace all the functions of enterprises. On the contrary, in the information society, people's face-to-face communication has been paid more and more attention.For example, in the Marunouchi area of ​​the CBD in Tokyo, Japan, due to insufficient supply of office buildings in the late 1980s and early 1990s, many large companies relocated out. Proximity to customers and immediacy of information return to the CBD.Therefore, it can be said that in the Internet age, CBD will continue to exist.However, the CBD under the new economy can no longer be used as a reference according to the planning under the traditional economic system.With the blurring of the boundaries of property types and global leisure, the properties in the new CBD will be diversified, and must be office, residence, entertainment and leisure.As long as we are market-oriented, we will not make mistakes and take detours, because people's inertia is included in the needs of the market. CBD is a product of the market economy. In the past, there was no concept of CBD in the urban planning of our country.However, people who live in Beijing are familiar with the "Guomao business district". Owning property in this business district can also obtain a sense of superiority similar to that of "Manhattan".Since the State Council in 1993 planned the 4 square kilometers area around China World Trade Center as Beijing's Central Business District, this land has become even more attractive. However, the status quo of Beijing CBD is quite unsatisfactory.Overcrowded office buildings, high vacancy rate, few broadband networks, and sparse road network have made it difficult to meet the requirements of the information age.Under the new economy, what kind of functions should a city's CBD have, so as not to fall behind in today's global informatization?This is a new subject before us. "We have reached a turning point in the development of cities, because for the first time in history, human beings have almost no limits in the technology of building cities; we can build any city, as long as we can know what we want." (James Trafair) What do we want?This is a very sharp question, and we can answer it with certainty: we want to build new types of properties in the CBD of Beijing to meet the needs of the new economy. Many CBDs that have been built are mostly finance and office-based.There are also some for other purposes, such as the CBD of Paris, which concentrates modern buildings away from the city center in order to protect an ancient city of Paris. We think: First, Beijing's CBD should be a diversified CBD.First, Beijing CBD is located in a place where foreign-related hotels, foreign-related office buildings and embassies are concentrated. Since the reform and opening up, most foreign-funded enterprises have entered the Chinese market and grown from this area.Second, many large information-based companies have settled here, such as IBM, HP, and MOTOROLA.Most of the .com companies are also in this area.The third is the concentration of the media industry. Beijing is the center of China's media industry. 80% of media products are produced and traded in Beijing.Some big media companies are also in the CBD, such as News Corporation, Beijing TV Center and so on. Second, Beijing's CBD should be a 24-hour CBD, a CBD that can retain people. The architectural style in the CBD should not be just a simple office building.A good area should have good balance.Just like the fried noodles that Beijingers eat, there are noodles, sauce, meat, and various side dishes. It is delicious when mixed together. If one bowl is noodles and the other bowl is sauce, it is impossible tasty.For example, Wall Street in New York is in the lower city. The single type of office buildings makes it very deserted after get off work, and there is no prosperity.Now some big banks such as Morgan Stanley have moved from downtown to Midtown. Third, Beijing CBD should have the characteristics of the network economy, not pursuing high or large, but pursuing individuality, wisdom, and behaviors suitable for future people. Fourth, the construction of Beijing's CBD is market-oriented, and it is a CBD that thrives freely on the soil of the market economy.La Défense in Paris and Lujiazui in Pudong, Shanghai should serve as examples for us. Fifth, if Beijing CBD wants to attract people like a magnetic field, it must have streets to shop.Only with continuous and uninterrupted commercial streets can a prosperous commercial atmosphere be formed.In the past two years, we have made an attempt in Beijing CBD. In 1999, we launched the SOHO Modern City project one kilometer east of China World Trade Center.Our target customers are those who are active in the information society and have a large degree of freedom in work and life.Its "a little different, a little avant-garde" style has been recognized by modern people who pursue individuality and freedom, and the real estate has basically been sold out before breaking ground; but it has also attracted "criticism" from people with different ideas. has aroused widespread controversy. Regardless of whether the CBD area is large or small, under the new economy, the houses in the CBD must change. If they cannot adapt to the new economy, they will be eliminated.If the houses we build will not be eliminated in the future, we must understand the future and use the future to think about the present.The biggest waste of building a house is that the most essential space of the house always lags behind the requirements of people's life and work. When we were working on the modern city project, we cooperated with China Netcom. It is the first company in the world to use IP/DWDM technology on a large scale and in the entire network, and opened 80G all-IP channels in 17 cities on two optical fibers.Modern City has implemented optical fiber into buildings, providing users with point-to-point broadband applications. Its characteristics of large capacity, high speed, low price and high quality provide space and oxygen for the development and utilization of user information resources.In this era when telecommunication systems are increasingly replacing channel systems and digital information dissolves traditional architectural styles, houses are no longer just bricks and stones that shelter our lives. They not only need to be in harmony with the natural and urban environment, but also must be compatible with the computer environment. Adapt, and finally form an environment and space that can touch our hearts. Therefore, developers under the new economy should consider investing more funds in the smart space, that is, the establishment of a broadband, interactive, personalized, and rich database-supported network environment. On the establishment of humanistic environment.