The sky corridor of Raffles City Chongqing was successfully closed, Jan.14, 2019. (photo by Wang Quanchao/Xinhua News)

By Keqiao Cheng, EDITOR

Chongqing - All parts of the Crystal Corridor of Raffles City Chongqing, hailed as China’s first “horizontal skyscraper”, successfully closed together at Chaotianmen riverfront January 14. The landmark building steadily spans the top of four towers, unfolding a picture scroll of “sailing in the sky”.

300-meter-long horizontal skyscraper

300 meters long, 30 meters wide and about 22.5 meters high, it stretches across four 250-meter-high towers.

The crystal corridor uses more than 8,000 pieces of hyperbolic special-shaped lighted curtain walls. In order to ensure construction accuracy, the constructor adopted the fabricated construction method. In other words, it assembled the curtain walls into a whole on the ground before hoisting.

The windward area of the corridor is over 500 square meters, bigger than a standard basketball court. In addition, it’s located between the tall buildings at the intersection of the Yangtze River and the Jialing River. The strong and unstable airflow makes the hoisting even more difficult.

Besides this, technicians must enable the corridor which weighs 52 tons to resist wind force and ensure accurate installation.

Rendering of the illumination of the sky corridor (photo by Chen Xiang)

To open in September 2019

Meanwhile, the Raffles City Chongqing will include a viewing platform, a club and catering and entertainment projects, covering an area of over 10,000 square meters.

Also, it designed a meteor-shower-themed exterior lighting to match the sailing theme of other annexes of the project. The whole project forms a dynamic picture scroll with the two rivers, the city and the nearby mountains. So it is expected to become another landmark of Chongqing. Additionally, Chongqing Raffles will welcome various types of business one after another in September this year.

Source: Chongqing Broadcasting Group