Beijing National Aquatics Center

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 Beijing National Aquatics Center
Designer PTW Architects, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Location Beijing, China
Date 2003 to late 2007
Building Type Stadium
Construction System steel, structural glass
Climate Warm Temperate
Context Urban, Park
Architectural Style High Tech Modern
Builder China State Construction Engineering Corporation, Beijing, China
Street Address
Notes Also known as The Water Cube. Designed with Arup and the China State Construction Engineering Corporation, Beijing, China (CSCEC); Part of the Beijing Olympic Green, site of the 2008 Olympic Games.

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Building Details
Client Beijing State Asset Management, Chinese Olympic Committee, 2008 Summer Olympics
Cost $140 Million AUD
Area 90,000 square meters (968,800 square feet)
Length 177 meters (581 feet)
Width 30 meters (98 feet)
Program five pools, restaurant, seating for 17,000 (6,000 permanent, 11,000 temporary).
Awards  
  • Recipient, Australian Institute of Architects 2008 National Award, International Architecture


The Beijing National Aquatics Center is the main venue for aquatic competitions during the 2008 Summer Olympics, to be held in Beijing, China. Together with the Beijing National Stadium, the aquatics center (known as the Water Cube) stands at the center of the Olympic park in Beijing.

The building's unique exterior envelope was designed to recall bubbles in water.

A key element of the building's sustainability is its "reuse and recycling of 80% of water harvested from the roof catchment areas, pool backwash systems and overland flows".


[edit] Related Content from Wikipedia

Beijing National Aquatics Center

The Beijing National Aquatics Center (), also known as the National Aquatics Center (国家游泳中心), Official Olympics Site, National Aquatics Center better known as the Water Cube (水立方), is an aquatics center that was built alongside Beijing National Stadium in the Olympic Green for the swimming competitions of the 2008 Summer Olympics. Despite its nickname, the building is a cuboid (rectangular box), not a cube. Ground was broken on December 24, 2003, and the Center was completed and handed over for use on January 28, 2008.National Aquatics Center Delivered for Use, Beijing 2008 Olympics Official Web Site, 2008-01-28 Swimmers at the Water Cube broke 25 world records during the 2008 Olympics.

Architecture

thumb|left|The National Aquatics Center at night|160px In July 2003, the Water Cube design was chosen from 10 proposals in an international architectural competition for the aquatic center project.

The Water Cube was specially designed and built by a consortium made up of PTW Architects (an Australian architecture firm)PTW Architects, Arup international engineering group, CSCEC ( China State Construction Engineering Corporation), and CCDI ( China Construction Design International) of Shanghai.Welcome to WaterCube, the experiment that thinks it's a swimming pool by Peter Rogers in The Guardian, May 6 2004 The Water Cube's design was initiated by a team effort: the Chinese partners felt a square was more symbolic to Chinese culture and its relationship to the Bird's Nest stadium, while the Sydney based partners came up with the idea of covering the 'cube' with bubbles, symbolising water. It should be noted that contextually the cube symbolises earth whilst the circle (represented by the stadium) represents heaven. Hence symbolically the water cube references Chinese symbolic architecture.

Comprising a steel space frame, it is the largest ETFE clad structure in the world with over 100,000 m² of ETFE pillows that are only 0.2 mm (1/125 of an inch) in total thickness. The ETFE cladding allows more light and heat penetration than traditional glass, resulting in a 30% decrease in energy costs.

The outer wall is based on the Weaire–Phelan structure, a structure devised from the natural formation of bubbles in soap foam.Beijing venues – National Aquatics Center, on BBC Sports. The complex Weaire–Phelan pattern was developed by slicing through bubbles in soap foam, resulting in more irregular, organic patterns than foam bubble structures proposed earlier by the scientist Kelvin. Using the Weaire–Phelan geometry, the Water Cube's exterior cladding is made of 4,000 ETFE bubbles, some as large as 9.14 meters (30 feet) across, with seven different sizes for the roof and 15 for the walls.


The structure had a capacity of 17,000 during the games that is being reduced to 6,000. It also has a total land surface of 65,000 square meters and will cover a total of . Although called the Water Cube, the aquatic center is really a rectangular box (cuboid)- 178 meters (584 feet) square and 31 meters (102 feet) high.


Olympics

The Aquatics Center hosted the Swimming, Diving and Synchronized Swimming events during the Olympics. Water Polo was originally planned to be hosted in the venue but was moved to the Ying Tung Natatorium.

Many people believe Water Cube to be the fastest Olympic poolChina's Olympic Swimming Pool: Redefining Fast in the world. It is 1 meter deeper than most Olympic pools. Up to a certain limit, beyond which swimmers will lose their sense of vision, deeper pools allow the waves to dissipate down to the bottom, leading to less water disturbance to the swimmers. The pool also has perforated gutters on both sides to absorb the waves.

With the popularity of the newly introduced faster Speedo LZR Racer swim suit, the Aquatics Center saw 25 world records broken in the Beijing Olympics.

Since June 20, 2009 the Watercube has been open to the public on certain days of the week. It is also used for sound and light shows and during the summer of 2009 was turned into a ballet theater for a production of Swan Lake. The building's popularity has spawned many copycat structures throughout China. Barbara Demick. "Beijing's Water Cube Still Drawing Crowds. Los Angeles Times. Aug. 13, 2009. [1]

The Watercube closed to the public to undergo renovations on October 15, 2009. http://www.ebeijing.gov.cn/BeijingInformation/BeijingNewsUpdate/t1089220.htm

Awards

thumb|right|300px|The Beijing National Aquatics Center while under construction


  • 2004 – Venice Biennale – Award for most accomplished work Atmosphere section(page in Flash presentation)
  • 2006 – Popular Science Best of what's new 2006 in engineering
  • 2008 – NSW 'Project of the Year' award from the Australian Institute of Project Managementhttp://www.arup.com/australasia/newsitem.cfm?pageid=11834
  • 2009 – 40th annual MacRobert Award, the UK's biggest prize for engineering innovation

Notes

See also

External links







ar:مكعب المياه bg:Пекински национален център по водни спортове de:Nationales Schwimmzentrum Peking es:Centro Acuático Nacional de Pekín fa:مرکز ملی ورزش‌های آبی پکن fr:Centre national de natation de Pékin gl:Centro Acuático Nacional de Beijing ko:베이징 국가수영장 hr:Nacionalni centar za vodene sportove u Pekingu id:Pusat Akuatika Nasional Beijing it:Centro Acquatico Nazionale di Pechino he:מרכז ענפי ספורט המים הלאומי בייג'ינג ka:პეკინის ეროვნული აკვაცენტრი hu:Pekingi Nemzeti Vízi Központ ms:Pusat Akuatik Nasional Beijing nl:Beijing National Aquatics Center ja:北京国家水泳センター no:Beijing National Aquatics Centre pl:Pływalnia Olimpijska w Pekinie pt:Centro Aquático Nacional de Pequim ru:Пекинский национальный плавательный комплекс sr:Национални центар за водене спортове у Пекингу fi:Pekingin kansallinen vesiurheilukeskus sv:Pekings Nationella simstadion tl:Sentrong Pambansa ng Akwatika ng Beijing vi:Trung tâm thể thao dưới nước quốc gia Bắc Kinh zh:国家游泳中心

Above content from Wikipedia available under GFDL retrieved Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:40:03 -0800


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