The announcement was made in 2001 that Beijing is awarded the World Olympics 2008 and this is the preparation for 16-day event. The call was immediately made to build stadia, roads, hotels, skyscraper, rail-way, and another terminal of airport to accommodate the people and athletes likely to grace the occasion. Historical buildings were dismantled to make space for modern structures; this led to the creation of a new historical landmark: the Bird's Nest.
Through the jury and the public voting in mid 2003, 13 firms were finally selected among which , the AIC selected Swiss architecture firm of Herzog & de Meuron as the winner of the competition that aimed and achieving at acquiring the best designing firm for main stadium. During that time, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron where engage in other projects such as designing and construction of the current famous Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg Germany. With their design, China was going to announce the world over the economic triumph the country had achieved.
The brief was simple. The client: Beijing City required a stadium that should have an approximate seating capacity of 100000 but should be reduced to 80000 after Olympics event. They also envisaged a stadium that could also be transformed for use in other functions in the future functions. After listening to international and foreign outbursts over China’s massive contribution to green house gases from its industries and manufacturing plants, the hosts wanted the new stadium to be green – for a start. On top of that, and we still could not believe it, the stadium had to be iconic.
The architects of Herzog & de Meuron looked forward to the task of designing in Beijing. It was with dozens of other international companies and only 13 companies were selected to make into the final stage of the competition. The Beijing National Stadium was created from an old Chinese art with woven lines around a circular vessel. The architects could not even envision a bird or a nest. But both the panel and the public quickly came to understand it is the same as a bird ‘s nest as soon as it turned into an exhibition and the name Bird ‘s Nest emerged and is now well known all around the world.
The selected site for the stadium was centrally located in China’s Olympic Green; while relatively even, all principal roads in the city converge toward the stadium plinth that links to the main pedestrian plaza.
One of the principal reasons for the Chinese government’s interest in the revenues to be generated from the construction of the stadium was the fact that a large amount of steel was needed to complete the project. It made no other structure in the world have made combined use of 110000 tonnes of steel and 36km of steel struts. China would be the first, which should go to their head given their economic position of a developing nation. Large quantities of concrete would be lifted from the ground into a bowl like form to provide the capacity of the seats and the remaining habitable spaces of the stadiums. In later years more griding steel structures would be woven and interlaced around that bowl to produce a sensational drama of architecture.
One of the stand-out requirements for the stadium was an earthquake-proof design. China has a very high seismic risk explained by one of the severest earthquake in the history after the Tangshan town, a town not very far from Beijing, which recorded a 7.8 magnitude and caused the death of 250000 people, injuries to several others and destruction of property worth millions of dollars. Beijing’s administration wanted to guarantee the stadium could tolerate earth of magnitude up to 8.0.
The engineering division of Arup, the Arupsport who is in charge of the engineering of sports facility engaged the design to the seismic tests with the architects in order to establish the way forward about the manner in which the unique design was going to resist earthquakes. Finally, they resolved to design the steel teardrop like the steel like structures as a distinct construction apart from the concrete shell. This meant that in case of an earthquake and the concrete cracked the steel frame will not crack.
The engineers also partitioned the concrete bowl into six segments that can manoeuvre individually in the event of an earthquake. Infrastructures erected from concrete that doesn’t have the capability to sway in the event of an earthquake like what parts of a building are constructed independently can be very fatal as with a single shake, the entire building comes crumbling down. To improve on the Bird’s Nest structural design, the structure is divided into different parts, thus having jointed structures with fairly wide interconnecting spaces so that in the event of an earthquake, each part is able to shift independently thus preventing the whole structure from collapsing. The steel was specially produced for the stadium so experts were able to design a light steel structure capable of offering maximum resistance to seismic activity.
Its structure involving steel means that one cannot clearly locate the secondary and the primary structure as though they exist and help support the roof of the structure since using columns are likely to obscure some spectators from the proceeding in the stadium. By the use of the architects, a vigorous design process was undertaken so that the bowl shape was not to take the spectators too far from the sitting positions on the field. If the sitting spaces for people in the stands would have been too high it meant that spectators at that height would hardly follow a ball that has been thrown in the field. Athletics stadiums are usually larger than soccer stadiums, which was a problem to deal with in this case. It has north-south length of 333m and east-west width of 294m; the highest point is 68.5m above the main part of the stadium, so that there are closer vantage points to this main area.
Even though the façade adopted an open design to accommodate natural dess inn and ventilation, a roof canopy constructed of single-ply ETFE membranes, deployed between the segments of the steel work, shields the spectators from the wind and rain. The exterior of steel structure is painted light grey while the concrete is painted red and one can get an amazing view by standing outside as the façade illuminates at night when there is a match. It was designed to hold an initial capacity of 91,000 people, which could be decreased to 80,000 at least – when the temporary stands were demolished after the celebration.
Herzog says the idea was to create something like Eiffel Tower; architecture developed for an event but which assumes the status of an event. I am writing this seven years after the Bird’s Nest was constructed and as the designer wanted the building to turn into an icon, tourists come to Beijing to see it most especially at night because that is when the building portrays the sun. In Chinese customs circles symbolize the sun and what a representation of the circle this monument is.
Also read, a futuristic looking stadium that lying on the waterfront with integration of technologies and big public space which is McLane Stadium, Home To The Baylor Bears By Populous.
Project Information
Architects:
Herzog & de Meuron
Location:
Beijing, China
Structural Engineers: Arup
Consulting Artist: Ai Weiwei
Competition: 2002-2003
Construction: 2004-2008
Photography: Herzog & de Meuron, Wojtek Gurak
