Beijing Watercube

The Watercube, also known as the Aquatics Centre was built as you know for the 2008 Bijing Olympics. The structure is covered in 100,000 square meters of ETFE, a tough recyclable material that weighs just one percent of an equivalent-sized glass panel, these cushions were inflated with low-pressure air and restrained in aluminum extrusions, and supported by a lightweight steel structure. The building contains more than 22,000 steel beam members and 12,000 nodes. The architectural interior, structure, and facade of the building are one unified thick/ hollow wall and roof element. The wall cavity is 3.6 meters deep, and the cavity that forms the roof is 7.2 meters deep.

Most of the solar energy that permeates the building structural zone can be captured to heat the pools between the two layers of ETFE, generating a current that can be regulated for temperature control. Although the design was computer generated mostly through scripts, and the elements were produced industrially, the assembling process and welding of the building happened mostly onsite.