Editor’s comment:

Shougang, with a history of nearly one hundred years, has been associated with the Beijing Olympics. From the entry of the Organizing Committee of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics into Shougang Park to the signature of a cooperative framework agreement with the General Administration of Sports of China, Shougang builds the winter training center of the General Administration of Sports of China on the basis of the original industrial remains, ensures the training needs of the short track speed skating, figure skating, curling, hockey and other events of the Chinese National Team and jointly promotes the preparation of the 2022 Winter Olympics and the construction and efficient and orderly development of the national sports industry demonstration zone, making efforts in developing Shougang Park into a new urban revitalization landmark of Beijing.

In order to ensure the safety and stability of the project, workers of the Project Department of the Winter Olympics training center of Shougang Construction Group overcome a variety of difficulties, persevere in the construction site, annotate the solemn promise of “all for the Winter Olympics” with actions and promote the construction of the winter training center in a down-to-earth manner.

News background

In 2016, the Organizing Committee of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics entered Shougang Park and became the center of preparations for the Winter Olympics. In order to carry out the spirit of the important speech of General Secretary Xi Jinping when he inspected Beijing, to serve and guarantee the Winter Olympics, develop the sports industry and promote the sports for all, the General Administration of Sport of China signed “Cooperation Framework Agreement on the Preparation for the 2022 Winter Olympics and the Construction of the National Sports Industry Demonstration Zone” with Shougang Group on February 28, 2017. Shougang Group activated the industrial resources and used them as the sports and recreational facilities with the snow sports as the main theme, rebuilt the old industrial workshop into the national team training ground, and created the national sports industry demonstration zone. In Shougang Park, the training center is built for the Winter Olympic events covering the Winter Olympic training venues of short track speed skating, figure skating, curling, hockey and other events and related supporting facilities.

Shougang firmly seizes the opportunity of the Winter Olympics, builds the national sports industry demonstration zone combined with its own unique advantages, promotes the aggregation of the national sports resources in the demonstration zone and explores the methods and ways of developing the sports industry in Olympic heritage and industrial relics sites in an innovative manner. In order to guarantee the preparation for the Winter Olympics, Shougang relies on the resources of the Winter Olympics to develop the sports industry, further accelerates the planned construction of the winter sports events and facilitates in the park and “sports +” related industry cultivation, builds the ice sports training base, the ice and snow sports venue and the Winter Olympic square of the National Team at a high level and enhances comprehensive service functions of the core area of the Winter Olympics. Combined with the strategic planning of the New Shougang high-end industry integrated service area, the company integrates the existing sports industry patterns and resources of Shougang, create sports fitness, sports leisure, event service, sports science and technology, sports commerce, sports exhibition, sports finance, ice and snow equipment and apparatus localization and other “sports +” industries, builds the national sports industry demonstration zone, and explores the practice path of the sports industry innovation development, agglomeration development, high-end development and green development, making Shougang Park a model of promoting urban development by the Olympic Games and enhancing the strategic transformation of Shougang and the rapid development of sports industry.

Project introduction

According to the current planning, in the North District of Shougang Park, there will eventually exist four Winter Olympic training venues. The winter training center is located in the western Winter Olympic square of New Shougang high-end industrial integrated service area, at the foot of Shijingshan Mountain and between Xiu Pool and Quming Lake. The construction land is divided into two plots, with the total land area about 4.9 hectares. The project land boasts convenient traffic conditions and beautiful natural scenery. In this project, the industrial remains will be transformed, such as the clean coal workshop and build 3 transitional training venues for the National Team, namely speed skating, figure skating and curling. On the north side of the clean coal workshop, a new hockey training venue as well as supporting athletes’ apartments and commercial facilities will be built. While designing the venues, Shougang should not only ensure the recent training of the National Team, but also consider the long-term venue function conversion and get rid of the global issue of “short life span of the Olympic venues”. According to the follow-up plan, the training venues will be converted into social facilities. “The four pieces of ice” in Shougang Park will be opened to the public, and contribute to the popularization of ice sports. At the same time, they will become the permanent venues able to undertake comprehensive events so to extend the life of venues.

Adhering to the ideas of reserve, invisible mending and innovation, the winter training center project regards reserve and utilization of industrial resources as the core, makes full use of the old industrial buildings and builds four ice training venues (speed skating, figure skating, curling and hockey) in line with specifications of the international venues and related supporting apartments by repair, renovation, added construction and other invisible mending ways and on the basis of retaining main characteristics of the original buildings. The floor space of the buildings is about 64,900 square meters. Among these buildings, the area transformed from the clean coal workshop is about 25,300 square meters. The original volume scale remains, divide the huge volume into three venue spaces, that is, speed skating, figure skating and curling by means of breaking up the whole into parts and retain and reuse the characteristics of the original structures. The covered area of the hockey venue on the ground is about 17,000 square meters. With the roof of the original clean coal workshop building as the prototype, a new venue space is built and can undertake the holding of the formal event with a 3,000-person capacity. The total covered area of apartments and supporting facilitates on the ground is about 22,600 square meters. These and the venue buildings echo each other at a distance. Moreover, some primary trees of the base are kept in the area. The trees and architectural space have an interaction, forming a courtyard with a strong Chinese-style charm.

From the project design to the implementation, there was a detailed analysis and argumentation in the early stage. The design retains the super-large space of the clean coal workshop and the distinctive structural column of the factory building. Shougang took into consideration the functions of the ice and snow sports and invited professional companies for energy technology planning and ice rink process design to achieve the perfect combination of industrial characteristics and ice and snow sports function. It is learned that in the construction process, Shougang adopted a lot of advanced technical means. After the assembly of the roof steel structure beyond the site, Shougang adopted the aerial slippage technology and pushed it in place step by step through the air track and hydraulic Jack in order not to interfere the ground operation in the process of air operation and save time. In addition, in the aspect of pipeline laying in the venue, Shougang changed the original plan into a three-dimensional one through the advanced technology, intuitively reflecting the space position of the pipeline in the building so as to check the crossing between the pipelines and adjust the discharge between the pipelines in time.

As of December 6, 2017, the venues for speed skating, figure skating and curling training which were transformed from the clean coal workshop were receiving the glass installation of curtain walls and indoor fine decoration. The heat exchange station of the hockey venue had pre-acceptance on December 8, 2017 and pipelines of the ice machine room were installed completely. At present, the plan is being deepened and is expected to be completed in August 2018. The curtain wall glass of the south part of the tennis venue was already installed and the indoor decoration was on a tight schedule. The roofing structure of No. 2 Building, a supporting hotel-style apartment for athletes was also completed. The seven-story structure of No. 3 to No. 4 Buildings was completed and there was ongoing pipeline installation and fine decoration to satisfy the check-in demand of speed skating, figure skating and curling athletes.

In the near future, the unprecedented “snow and ice venues with industrial characteristics” in Shougang Park will appear in front of the public.

(By Shougang Construction Investment Co., Ltd.)