Beijing National Aquatics Center
Beijing National Aquatics Center-
Photo:游芝榕
Built alongside Beijing Olympic Green and also known as "Water Cube" or abbreviated H2O, its located west of Beijing National Stadium. Beijing National Aquatics Center, the largest ETFE (Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) clad public structure on earth, occupies 80,000 square meters in dimension and 30 meters in height. Beijing National Aquatics Center is the main venue for aquatic competitions during the 2008 Summer Olympics; it was designed by PTW Architects, CSCEC International Design and Arup with structural Engineers Arup conceiving the structure. The structure was built by China State Construction Engineering Corporation.
Composing a steel space frame, Beijing National Aquatics Center is the largest ETFE clad structure in the world. The outer wall of the structure is based on the Weaire-Phelan structure, just like soap bubbles. With over 100,000 m2 of ETFE pillows, each of patterns is formed by taking a slice through the foam. As the structure with the largest scale, the most complicated composition, and fabricated with synthetically-combined technology, Beijing National Aquatics Center with water blue guise, several pools and diving towers, and 6,000 permanent seats, will host Swimming, Diving, Synchronized Swimming events during the Olympics in beijing. The Water Polo was originally planned to be hosted in this aquatics center but has been moved to the Ying Tung Natatorium.
Benson W.
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