The ‘Water Cube’, which will house the Beijing National Swimming Centre at an estimated cost of $100 million, will be the height of a 10-storey building and be the largest Olympic swimming centre ever built.

With a gross floor area of 80,000m2, it will seat some 17,000 people and house two Olympic pools, a diving pool, leisure water features including water slides and a wave pool, together with related facilities.

This ambitious project was designed by a team of Australian engineers and architects together with two Chinese partner organisations, and the result is a fully integrated concept from both an engineering and architectural perspective.

Engineers from Arup and architects from PTW Architects in Sydney, in association with the China State Construction and Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) and the China Construction Design Institute (CCDI), came up with a concept based on the natural shape of water bubbles.

The engineers had the important role of clearly conveying to the architects what the building was required to achieve in terms of thermal, energy, hydraulic, environmental and technical performance.

Rapid prototyping was used to physically model the complex structure from CAD drawings and various CAD-driven scenarios were introduced to test the strength of the steel structure. Some 25,000 beam size variables and 57 million design constraints were analysed for strength.

PTW’s associate director, Mark Butler, who was the architect’s design leader for the project, says it was critical that the architects and engineers had a very close working relationship in developing the winning submission and then bringing the project to fruition.

“A total team effort was required. In the early stages of design, architects from our China partners worked with us in Sydney and as the project progressed our architects and Arup engineers joined the Chinese partners in Beijing,” Mr Butler says.

“At the concept stage we were looking for innovative ideas that would enable us to win the international competition. The design needed to be ‘Chinese’ in a modern way and to harmonise with the main stadium nearby.

“The design had to be about water and have a green theme. Cross-fertilisation of ideas was central to the team’s ability to break new engineering and architectural ground.

“The aims of the project and the engineering principles were clearly presented at the outset and then the pressure was on to achieve the agreed goals.

“During the design process it was particularly important to work closely with the engineers on the critical innovative parts of the building including the structure and facade, and many challenging issues had to be addressed such as creation of the bubbles and fire engineering.

“To ensure effective coordination, numerous 3D information models in multiple software formats were exchanged between the design partners throughout the entire design process.

“Once the team had successfully completed the initial scheme and won the competition, the project then progressed on to complete the design development and documentation.”

More than 80 Arup engineers and specialists spread across 12 disciplines and four countries were involved in various elements of the design.

The huge Water Cube complex is 177m wide, 177m (580ft) long and 31m (101ft) high, and the structure is made from a network of steel tubular members clad with translucent ETFE (Ethyl Tetra Fluoro Ethylene) pillows.

A strain of fluoro polymer, ETFE is a strong recyclable lightweight material that lets in more light than glass but is resistant to the weathering effects of sunlight.