Busy workers, busting trucks.
Standing on the construction site, you can feel the pulse of the birth of the Shenzhen Bay Sports Center, which is better known as the Spring Cocoon because of its shape.
The 2 billion yuan (US$304 million) project covers an area of 330,000 square meters and is taking shape on a vast barren land in Nanshan District.
In less than five months, it will greet the world with a spectacular opening ceremony of the Universiade and welcome thousands of student athletes from all over the world.
The construction of the Spring Cocoon, which integrates a stadium, natatorium and gymnasium, is a miracle in Shenzhen because the huge project will have taken only 21 months to complete, said Li Jian, manager of the project s construction department.
The three sports facilities are embraced by an innovatively designed cocoon nest of tens of thousands of tons of iron and are connected by a platform elevated about six meters above the ground.
We call it the six-meter platform. It could be the most distinctive feature of the whole project, Li said when walking up the stairs from the South Gate, the main entrance of the Universiade venue, during a field interview with the Shenzhen Daily.
Up the stairs is a flower-basket shaped iron structure of about 20 meters tall which supports the whole cocoon nest, with the gymnasium on the left and the stadium on the right. And the structure has a name Big Tree Square, Li said.
To fit the shape of the nest, iron had been twisted and made into curves. As a result, the squares between the grids are different in size, which challenges the intelligence of the workers because they have to design, cut and install the glass screens into the squares piece by piece, he said.
With one footbridge over Binhai Boulevard to connect the platform with a neighborhood in the north and two bridges connecting the Inner Lake areas in the south, the platform will be of great convenience for residents to enter the sports center. Turning right to the stadium, you will have an awesome sight of a sightseeing bridge, the Gate of Sea.
From the bleachers, spectators can enjoy sports games and the view of the Shenzhen Bay and the Gate of Sea.
The Spring Cocoon was initially designed as a standby venue for training and warm-up sessions for athletes, but it has now been chosen for the opening ceremony and some other competitions.
It will have taken only less than two years to finish the project with constant changes in the design, said Li.
The winning bid was originally a design of the Shell of Sea by China Architecture Design and Research Group after public votes and expert appraisals.
But the design was replaced by the Spring Cocoon, a brainchild of Beijing Institute of Architectural Design and AXS Sawto Inc. in January 2008 for it saves a lot of public space compared with the Shells of the Sea.
After the Universiade, the sports center will be used for residents sports activities, leisure and some sports events.
