Welcome to the next installment of my Dazzling Designs series. Tonight, I am here to show you Beijing's "Big Box of Bubbles" as continuingeducation.construction.com says it.
It's a structure that was built to host the swimming and diving events at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Inside this "big box of bubbles", you will find huge Olympic-size swimming pools. The designers didn't want to make just a regular building to host the events. They wanted to go out with a bang or a "pop" as I should say. They also wanted to capture the essence of water and wanted to make you feel as if you were inside a big bubble or under the sea. Min Wang, a man that is part of the China Construction Design International group said, "We wanted the building to dematerialize, to change moods, to react to changes in the environment around it."
I can imagine that at different times of day the atmosphere and color of the inside change. Imagine being there while the sun sets, the inside will probably light up bright orange and will have a glow. It would be even cooler if they were able to capture the essence of an actual bubble. If it was possible to get prism-style lighting inside the bubble box, it would be electrifying.
The group studied the geometry of soap bubbles to understand how to make the structure look like liquid. In other words, they wanted you to feel like you were really inside a huge bubble!
"During the day, diffuse sunlight provides much of the lighting for the Water Cube's interior spaces, such as the competition pool. At night, the building becomes a glowing blue box with the help of LEDs."
The building's roof alone is over 340,000 square feet. In the pictures above, you can see how the frame was put together. 22,000 steel tubes were welded together to make the frame. "To visitors, the gray-water-recycling and rainwater-harvesting systems will be invisible. For them, the bubbles (and the Olympic competitors) will steal the show, especially at night, when the Water Cube becomes a glowing blue box with the help of LEDs integrated into the pillow frames," says continuingeducation.construction.com.
The Water Box is truly one of architecture's most intuitive and creative design. Those bubbles look amazing. I would probably get distracted from watching the show because of the structure itself. I just hope it doesn't POP!
Read the full post at http://continuingeducation.construction.com/article.php?L=5&C=418
Sources:
>> All pictures and information from continuingeducation.construction.com
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