Olympic Park #1

Today we went to Beijing’s Olympic Park. The entire complex was built from scratch for the 2008 Summer Games on a Greenfield (or razed) site to the North of the city.

The development is a very large set of hotels, a conference center, housing plus the two iconic building where the swimming and track events took place; the “Water Cube” aquatic center and the “Birds Nest” stadium.

Although the TV and print pictures did show both of these structures in a good light, up close, the level of detail and very innovative design is most impressive. For example, the Water Cube’s exterior walls are an array of ETPE inflated “pillows” each within an aluminum frame. This is both highly insulating and lets light in. The stadium’s exoskeleton (if you will) looks delicate from a distance but up close the steel pillars are massive and the curves are quite subtle so it takes some close observation to figure out exactly how the structure works to support all the levels of seating and a partial roof with absolutely no pillars or columns visible from the inside.

It continued to be hot and humid today (around 90F & 85%). In these conditions many of the women carry light colored umbrellas to keep the sun off their skin….so of course Rachel wanted one too. Unfortunately there’s a slight mismatch between the size of her and the umbrella so when she’s carrying it the appearance is of a pink mushroom moving slowly along. This looks cute but since she can’t see well enough around to avoid other pedestrians there are some problems making progress. Still, it works when Debbie holds it over both of them!

Inside the Water Cube there was a five lineup of the mascots from the games, and the Panda one (Jingjing) was Rachel’s favorite. (So yes, she got a small stuffed one to bring home).

This post has pictures of a hotel designed (I think) to look like a flame and the Water Cube itself. Another one will follow with pictures of the stadium.