The construction of one of the most beautiful buildings in China is underway. Better called the "Water Cube", this building is a state of the art project. Considered one of the most elegant and exciting venues of the 2008 Olympic games. The government required that the new Water Cube be very environmentaly helpful and useful. The Water Cube covers 70,000 square meters and if it were tipped on its side it would balance out without problems. The architecture firm PTW, the CSCEC and the CSCEC Shenzhen Design Institute (CSCEC+DESIGN) have won the international design competition for the National Swimming Center for the Beijing Olympics 2008. The competition which was ultimately judged by an international panel of architecture experts. This new attraction has been gladly accepted with some problems. Althought all the issues have been solved, some of the public remain a little concerened that such a tremendous building can be created without any problems.
Within the Water Cube there will be 5 pools and one that is equipped with a state of the art wave machine. The cube will have a permanent 6 thousand seats and an additional 11 thousand seats for the Olympic games. The outside of the cube will be made of the ETFE material. This material has excellent chemical and electrical properties. The cusions use 90% of the solar energy to heat the pools and inside area. These properties allow it to react to sunlight in a more efficient and costless way. Another attribute to the ETFE is the way it reacts to fire. In the Case of fire the material shrinks away from the fire, and thus allowing smoke to be let out of the building. This is a state of the art technology that allows the lighting and projection effects. This allows the building to heat itself and the pools but also release heat to prevent a inefficious greenhouse effect.
There is a water problem in china and this Water Cube easily deals with it. The water cube has a built in system that uses rainwater to refill the pools within. When it rains the trenches outside the Water Cube take in the water and top off the pools within. The water will be passed through two filtration systems before being let into the pools. The reused water that is stored in the tanks will be run through both of the filtration systems before being let in to the main pools. Although the Water cube uses rainwater to help fill the pools it is also very self-reliant when reuses its water. These aspects of the water cube make it very environmentally sound.
The Blue color of the Water cube and the sheer size and shape makes it the more male type building. The public as well as the government have sided in that this is the better have to the birds nest (which is the more feminine building). This centre is also called the masculine building of the 2008 Olympics. While the Birds nest is building that is a first of its type in the world, it is considered the female building of all the projects. When they are completed in 2007 the government hopes to run full scale tests to make sure the buildings hold there own. And when they are completed the Birds Nest and the Water Cube will represent China as a whole like no other buildings have before in Chinas' history. These historical buildings will draw more attention than the great wall of China, and makes it seem out of date to the public.
The Frame is made to withstand the seismic activities found in Beijing. It will have 3 different steel nodes and four different steel members that will be welded and bolted together at the construction area. The government made sure that the building could withstand massive earthquake activity. The engineers can up with the idea of having 3 different steel nodes and defferent steel members as explained before. All the engineers that worked on the buildings are all of Chinas' and the worlds best. There is little room for error in the projects of this scale and size.
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