bricworks3 the watercube post-olympics ai weiwei - ARCHILEPSY ...

The Telegraph (a very reputable UK
newspaper), Building Design Online
(a UK professional magazine), and
ARTINFO have described various
instances of deterioration throughout
the building. Specific claims have
included cracked plaster on the interior
of the building, instances of leaking,
glass panels falling out of the curtain
wall frame, and dozens of granite
panels being replaced on the exterior
savvy designers
façade.
The local government has been
quick to blame these issues on the
humid Guangzhou climate, which
features a lengthy monsoon season
and abnormally high heat index.
However, the contractor for the
project provided more specific insight:
"The problems with the quality of
the building are not because of the
design of the building but because
we did not take the complexity of the
design into consideration before we
started work.” His statement alludes
to an increasingly common sentiment
among Western architects working in
China: that the mostly migrant labor
force is not yet adept at executing
sophisticated construction details.
Despite massive efforts by the Chinese
government to provide advanced
training for hundreds of thousands
> A low-lying counterpoint
to adjacent high-rises
of rural construction workers, a 2009
report by Hong Kong-based SACOM
(Students and Scholars Against
Corporate Misbehavior) concluded
that 95% of migrant workers perform
their duties with no training. As a
result, countless news outlets such
as Time Magazine and CNN have
reported ad nausea on the substandard
quality of construction that seems to
be rampant throughout the country.
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