Heritage Building Lifting in Shanghai: Engineering Insights into Synchronized Hydraulic Lifting and Structural Underpinning

Introduction

Urban renewal projects in dense city centers increasingly require engineering methods that preserve historic structures while enabling new underground development. One notable industry reference is the heritage building lifting project at Zhangyuan on West Nanjing Road in Shanghai, China. The project involved lifting multiple historic Shikumen buildings while correcting long-term settlement and inclination issues.

Projects of this type demonstrate the critical role of advanced building lifting, structural underpinning, and controlled hydraulic technologies. For contractors and engineering companies, the successful execution of such work depends on accurate load transfer, synchronized movement, and continuous structural monitoring.

Project Overview

The Zhangyuan heritage building lifting project, where historic structures were preserved while enabling new underground development.

The Zhangyuan project involved seven historic Shikumen buildings with a total building area exceeding 9,000 square meters. These structures, developed over more than a century, had experienced differential settlement and structural inclination due to age, foundation conditions, and urban ground movement.

To support underground space development while preserving architectural heritage, the buildings were lifted approximately 1 meter. At the same time, tilt correction was carried out to restore structural alignment. This combination of heritage building lifting, deformation control, and underground construction represents one of the more complex applications in modern urban renewal engineering.

Engineering Challenges

Historic masonry and mixed-structure buildings are highly sensitive to uneven displacement. Unlike modern steel or reinforced concrete structures, heritage buildings often have limited tolerance for differential movement, localized stress concentration, and vibration.

Key engineering challenges in this type of project typically include:

• Maintaining structural integrity during the lifting process
• Controlling differential displacement across multiple support points
• Correcting building inclination without introducing secondary damage
• Working within limited clearance beneath existing structures
• Coordinating temporary support systems with permanent underground structures
• Ensuring accurate load distribution through beams, piles, and hydraulic lifting points

These requirements make conventional jacking methods insufficient. A controlled synchronized lifting system is often required to manage displacement in real time and keep the structure within allowable deformation limits.

Lifting and Underpinning Solution

Navigating limited clearance and coordinating complex temporary support systems are key engineering challenges in heritage building preservation.

Projects like the Zhangyuan reference case commonly rely on an integrated lifting and underpinning methodology. The approach may include tray beams installed beneath load-bearing walls, anchor static pressure piles to transfer loads to stable strata, steel distribution beams for load equalization, and multiple hydraulic lifting points arranged according to structural analysis.

A modern hydraulic jack-up system allows the lifting operation to be divided into controlled stages. Each jack point can be monitored and adjusted to maintain synchronized movement. This is especially important when lifting large-span or irregular buildings where load reactions vary significantly from point to point.

The project also highlighted advanced concepts such as active deformation control, large-span underpinning systems, “pile-column integration” technology, and permanent-temporary combined structural solutions. These methods help reduce material consumption, improve construction efficiency, and support green construction objectives in complex urban environments.

A view of the newly created space beneath the building, a direct result of the successful synchronized lifting and underpinning solution.

Why Low Height Hydraulic Cylinders Matter

Low-clearance environments are common in building lifting and underpinning applications. Existing foundations, limited excavation depth, and restricted working space often prevent the use of standard-height jacks. In these conditions, a low height hydraulic cylinder provides high lifting capacity within a compact installation envelope.

Low height cylinders are typically positioned between steel distribution beams and temporary support elements. Their compact design enables contractors to install multiple lifting points in confined spaces while maintaining sufficient stroke and capacity for staged lifting.

Low height hydraulic cylinders provide precise, synchronized lifting power, making them ideal for building underpinning projects with limited clearance.

When combined with a synchronized lifting system, low height cylinders allow precise vertical movement, controlled load transfer, and incremental height adjustment. This is particularly valuable in heritage building lifting, where even minor deviations between lifting points may create cracking, wall distortion, or uneven stress redistribution.

Industry Significance of Heritage Building Lifting

The Shanghai Zhangyuan project reflects a wider trend in urban engineering: preserving historic architecture while unlocking underground development potential. Instead of demolishing old buildings to create new space, advanced structural underpinning and synchronized hydraulic lifting technologies allow cities to protect cultural assets and improve land-use efficiency.

For contractors, this type of project requires more than lifting capacity alone. It demands a complete engineering approach that combines hydraulic equipment selection, structural analysis, load monitoring, deformation control, and site-specific lifting procedures.

Modern hydraulic lifting technologies are therefore becoming essential tools for heritage preservation, basement construction, foundation replacement, settlement correction, and infrastructure upgrading.

Conclusion

Heritage building lifting projects such as the Zhangyuan reference case demonstrate how precise hydraulic control and advanced underpinning methods can solve complex structural and urban development challenges. By integrating tray beams, piles, steel distribution systems, low-clearance hydraulic cylinders, and synchronized control, engineering teams can lift and correct historic buildings while maintaining stability and safety.

For industrial contractors and heavy lifting specialists, these applications show the value of selecting the right hydraulic jack-up system and synchronized lifting system for each project condition.

Looking for a customized lifting solution for heritage buildings, foundation repair, underground space development, or structural repositioning?

Contact our engineering team to discuss tailored hydraulic lifting systems, low height hydraulic cylinder configurations, synchronized control solutions, and complete technical support for your next building lifting or structural underpinning project.