The National Swimming Center / The Water Cube
Total area: 70,000 square meters
Total seats: 17,000
The National Swimming Center, known as 'The Water Cube', was one of the most dramatic and exciting venues to feature sporting events for the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
In July 2003, the consortium of Arup, architecture firm PTW, the CSCEC (China State Construction and Engineering Corporation) and the CSCEC Shenzhen Design Institute (CSCEC+DESIGN) won the international design competition for the National Swimming Center for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The building s skin, made from an innovative and lightweight transparent teflon , abbreviated as ETFE, has been designed to react specifically to lighting and projection and particularly the advanced systems which will become available in the coming four years to create a stunning visual and sensory experience that will also be shared by millions of television viewers around the world. This state-of-the-art material provides a cost effective cladding solution for modern architecture, enabling a wide range of applications where traditional materials, such as glass, may not be possible.
Despite its organic look, the structure is a simple steel space-frame consisting of two parts; the internal structure and the face structure that forms the actual roof and ceiling and accepts the ETFE pillow cladding.
The internal structure, within the depth of the roof and walls,is highly repetitive. There are three different nodes and four different members. The nodes can be cast or fabricated and the members, cast, rolled or fabricated.
The face structure comprises a flat web of rectangular box sections either welded or bolted together on site. The face structure is added to the top and bottom of the space frame to complete the structure.
The design is based on a common natural pattern, the most effective sub-division of three dimensional space the fundamental arrangement of organic cells and the natural formation of soap bubbles.
This US $100 million premier recreation centre will have five pools, including one with a wave machine and rides that are six times the size of an Olympic pool. There will also be organically shaped restaurant area carved out of the bubble structure.
We realized that a structure based on this unique geometry would be highly repetitive and buildable whilst appearing very organic and random. Indeed such space filling patterns are regularly observed in biological cells and mineral crystals, they are probably the most common structure in nature. Also the ductile space frame that is generated from this geometry is ideally suited to the seismic conditions found in Beijing. Tristram Carfrae, Arup team leader.
PTW, which currently employs over 150 people, maintains offices in Sydney, Australia as well as both Beijing and Shanghai in China. While the company is highly regarded for its major civic projects and large scale sports facilities, including involvement in the International Athletics Centre and the Aquatic Centre of the 2000 Sydney Games, PTW's strong and existing relationship with the Chinese played a pivotal role in the development process.
"Our successful concept owes much to our Chinese team partners, and particularly the China State Construction and Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) and Design Institute who effectively planted the seed of an idea that has ultimately captured the imagination of the Chinese people."Andrew Frost, Director, PTW.
The internationally renowned engineering firm of Arup also played a strategic part in solving the deceptively simple, yet complex equation. Arup is highly regarded as a world leader in engineering, responsible for such gravity defying structures as the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain, and Australia's own Sydney Opera House.
"Swimming centres require a lot of heating, but by cladding the building in high-tech ETFE cushions, we have developed a very efficient green house.
90% of the solar energy falling on the building is trapped within the structural zone and is used to heat the pools and the interior area"Kenneth Ma,Arup's Mechanical Engineer.