National Aquatics Center -Update

It's been many a month since I did a blog update on the Beijing Olympics and well, I needed to follow up the last post with something a bit lighter.

Tons of info at the official Beijing Olympics website: Beijing Olympics Website

The latest news is that the Exterior of the National Aquatics Center in Beijing is completed and provides the world with the insight as to how far these Olympics are pushing not only preparation for an Olympic Game but also the architecture of the games. I'm not denying the impact to the old world Beijing and the Hutongs but I won't deny either the incredible marvel of these engineering feats.

The hutongs deserve their own post and one day I'll do what is becoming a sad story some justice.

As for the Aquatics Center I've included the latest pictures from the Website and some facts I dug up online.

There are a total of 634 air cushions, or membrane structures on its outer layer.

The exterior cushions were completed in November but started in August.

The cushions are made of ethylene-tetra-fluoro-ethylene, or ETFE.

There are over 100,000sqm of ETFE foils, the single largest, most complicated and most comprehensive ETFE structure in the world to date.

The ETFE allows natural light into the building and provids solar energy to heat the building and the pool.

80% of the solar energy falling on the building is trapped inside the structure. (Photovoltaic cells are only 20% efficient)

It will be used for swimming, diving, water polo and synchronized swimming.

It's nickname is "H2O3", it's also known as the "water cube".

It covers an area of 65,000 SM and seats 17,000.

The winning design is based on a common natural pattern, I won't elaborate beyond to say it mimics the natural formation of soap bubbles.

Rainfall is scarce in Beijing and this building is incredibly efficient. Rather than a typical continuous pump in fresh water, discharge to sewer backwash water, this design includes filtering and return of water to the pools.

Any water not provided via continuous filtration and return comes from rainwater falling on the building and stored in underground tanks.