Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, May 13th: How hard is it to transform “Water Cube” into “ice cube?
— Visit Sun Weihua, the chief design director of “ice water conversion” of the National Swimming Center
Xinhua news agency reporters Wang Meng and Ji Ye
in Beijing Olympic Park, the transformation of the National Swimming Center is in full swing. In order to welcome the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the 2008 Olympic Games, as the “Water Cube” of swimming, diving and synchronized swimming events, will be transformed into “ice cube” and become the competition venue of cold water jug events. This transformation will also make the National Swimming Center become the two Olympic venues and the world’s first “ice water conversion” venue.
“After the 2008 Olympic Games, its unique image is deeply rooted in people’s hearts, and its unique architectural art also enjoys a certain position in the architectural field.” Speaking of this venue, Sun Weihua’s face was full of pride.
Sun Weihua is the chief design director of the “ice water conversion” of the National Swimming Center. He participated in the original design of the “Water Cube”, and now he faces the task of “ice water conversion” with his old colleagues. He admitted to the reporter that his mood was very complicated.
Sun Weihua said: “ice venues are relatively a relatively small type of architecture in China, with a certain degree of professionalism, and it is also a transformation of existing buildings, it is also the transformation of a famous building, and it is also the transformation of the stadium of the double Olympics competition, which can be imagined. But on the other hand, the design team including me, most of the main members are the old people in the period of” Water Cube “construction more than ten years ago. Everyone has deep feelings for” Water Cube “and has participated in its transformation and design work several times, large and small, we know ‘Water Cube’ very well. We think we have the innate advantages and emotional motivation to do better than others. Therefore, facing this task is a state of both pressure and confidence.”
According to Sun Weihua, from the date of birth, “Water Cube” has fully considered the continuity of future architectural life, realizing multi-functional operation requirements such as competition, visit, fitness, performance, etc, however, it is necessary to directly transform it from a summer Olympics venue to a Winter Olympics venue, which has few precedents in the architectural history. However, after communicating with the International Federation of cold water jug and consulting a lot of materials, sun Weihua found the similarity between the two venues, which greatly increased his confidence with the team members.
“First of all, in terms of site scale, a standard cold water jug games, such as cold water jug games on four tracks and a standard swimming pool, have a certain fit and are all rectangular. Then from the scale, the swimming pool is basically compatible with the requirements of cold water jug size. Therefore, we think that first of all, it is compatible from congenital conditions, which gives us great confidence.” Sun Weihua said.
However, the cold water jug competition requires high field stability, ice quality and flatness, and the swimming competition and the cold water jug competition require high temperature, humidity, light, the requirements of environmental factors such as acoustics are quite different. Sun Weihua joked, “this is changed from ‘water’ to ‘ice’, and what is more is really not just ‘two points ‘.”
“For example, ‘Water Cube’ turns out to be a swimming pool, and the temperature of the water, the temperature of the pool Bank and the temperature of the stands are a system. However, after switching to ice, its temperature field changed greatly. The temperature of the ice surface is about minus 8.5 degrees Celsius, 1.5 meters away from the ice surface, it becomes 10 degrees Celsius to plus or minus 2 degrees Celsius, and then to the audience area may become 18 degrees Celsius, this and the original temperature field distribution have relatively large changes. Humidity control should reduce the dew point temperature to minus 4 degrees Celsius.” Sun Weihua explained.
In addition, the “Water Cube” is a unique ETFE (artificial high-strength fluoropolymer) membrane structure building. The “water bubble” has good light transmission, but no light can shine on the ice during the cold water jug competition, the design team must find ways to not only present “The effect of water molecule bubbles, but also prevent direct exposure of light”, but also use sound absorption materials to control the reverberation time of the venue to 2 seconds, ensure that players can communicate with each other on the field.
More importantly, this transformation is not a one-off permanent project, but will be converted between “Water Cube” and “ice cube” many times in the future according to needs, to achieve “two-wheel drive”, it is necessary not only to “retain the functions of the original ‘Water Cube'”, but also to “increase the function of ice”, and even in the future, except for Cold Water Jug games, it should also be extended to ice hockey, short track speed skating and other fields.
“So we have something permanent, and some things need to be considered as a temporary switching mode.” Sun Weihua explained.
The “Water Cube” will be converted through the overhead structure in the swimming pool, which can also greatly reduce the cost of demolition and renovation in the later stage.
The application of science and technology is also a highlight of this transformation. In order to solve various problems in the process of “ice-water conversion”, experts from Harbin Institute of Technology, China Research Institute and Tsinghua University have carried out technical challenges, the air conditioning, dehumidification, air supply and other systems have been transformed, and the venue is planned to be “informationized” and “intelligent”, and the intelligent system has been upgraded during the transformation.
“We still pay special attention to the energy-saving and green transformation and upgrading measures of ‘Water Cube’ in this transformation. For example, we have adopted a series of measures to achieve our goal of energy conservation. First of all, we need to carry out some intelligent control. Its temperature, humidity, lighting and acoustic control system needs to realize automatic adjustment through intelligent control.”
Sun Weihua added that in the future to 2022, the design team will combine technology or terminal products to apply 5G, VR, AI, BIM and other technologies in the venue, even let the audience wear wearable devices to make them have a better experience during the competition.