STUDIO AIR2015, SEMESTER 1, SONYA

HAOYU LIU _ 633944

Table of Contents

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Water Cube Beijing National Aquatics Centre

Architects: PTW Architects, CSCEC, CCDI, and Arup Location: Beijing, China

As one of the most remarkable architectures in Beijing, the Water Cube was designed to be sustainable, eco-friendly and durable through its biomimicry design. The idea of its structure came from water bubbles and sea sponges. It looks like a cuboid filled with water, however it got a remarkable light weight and thin skin. The architects used a high-tech material called ETFE to achieve this result. This revolutionary material is critical

to the entire architecture, it helps to transmit light and radiating the heat from inside.

On the facade, none of the ‘bubbles’ are the same. These irregular bubbles support the structure with the light steel frames together.

The Water Cube did inspired the architectural industry not only in China but many other countries.

I admired how those architects used modern technologies to even control the shape of the building by increase or decrease the among of air in each of those bubbles. And we can find many similar examples around us (i.e. Design Hub of RMIT).

A1. DESIGN FUTURING PRECEDENCES STUDY

FIG.1: RENDERING OF THE INTERIOR OF THE WATER CUBE

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Metropol Parasol

Architect: Jürgen Mayer-Hermann Location: Seville, Spain

The Metropol Parasol is the largest wooden structure in the world until now. Its form comes from the mushrooms. The Parasol itself contains highly complex

structure inside which containing market, museum, etc. By applying the structure of mushrooms, the sculpture could support this large span by just six main columns.

I appreciate this work for its high level of creation and the architect’s great applicant from the nature to reality. The architects used this remarkable modern wood structure to build up a connection between tradition and modern.

A1. DESIGN FUTURING PRECEDENCES STUDY

FIG.2: METROPOL PARASOL

Comparing to the architectures nearby, the Parasol is absolutely the one and the only.