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South China Morning Post

Swire to lease more Zhangyuan retail space after record 18-building move with robots

Swire Properties and its partner in mainland China are preparing to lease the second phase of their retail venture in Shanghai, after shifting 18 buildings on the Zhangyuan site sideways with robots to make way for the construction of a multi-level underground mall. Advertisement The joint venture aimed to release the space in stages from next year, according to Holly Zhang Yuanfu, deputy general manager of Shanghai Jing'an Urban Regeneration Construction Development, the owner of the site. The first phase of the project was completed in late 2022. 'The underground work began after the little robots completed their relocation tasks,' Zhang said. 'Combining the progress of underground construction, the robots will then protectively relocate the buildings back to their original positions.' 'Our goal is to carry out renovation and upgrades while fully preserving the historical buildings,' she added, likening the effort to moving 'fragile grandpas and grannies' that required extreme precision and caution. 'Our goal is revitalisation. Demolition was never an option.' 01:45 Hundreds of robots move an entire city block in China Hundreds of robots move an entire city block in China The property owner shifted 7,500 tonnes of 18 buildings from the site by 10 metres a day using 432 company-built crawler robots. In total, it would be shifting 40 buildings in the relocation effort. It represented the heaviest lateral move in the world over the past decade. The record was an 18,000-tonne structure in Baku, Azerbaijan, in April 2013, according to the Guinness World Records Advertisement In mainland China, the heaviest move – as opposed to taking a building apart and then reassembling it – was the 15,140-tonne Fu Gang Building in Guangxi province, which moved 35 metres sideways in 2004.