More Bird's Nest

Some great photos (via Arch Daily) of Herzog & de Meuron's Olympic stadium, the Bird's Nest. To generalize broadly, architects (including me) love the interstitial spaces of buildings. This is a great example of using this space in between -- not outside, not inside -- and making it alive and animated. The more I see of this building the more I like it. (previously) And, of course, I love the view of the Water Cube!

Fast Pool

What makes the Beijing National Aquatics Centre (aka the Water Cube) such a fast pool? From what I've heard, its fast because its deep, which reduces drag on the swimmer (3 meters as compared to 2 meters for most pools). I think its because it is absolutely gorgeous so maybe everyone is inspired by the design to swim faster! The building was designed by PTW Architects, with world-famous engineering/everything firm Arup and CCDI.

Olympic Judo

We watched the Olympics Judo qualifying matches streaming online last night (photo, above, of Brit Craig Fallon, by the Telegraph). It was great. It was also pretty complicated for a sport that mostly involves making your opponent bleed and/or pass out. Its incredible that there is a legitimate sport where choking your opponent until he (or she) goes unconscious is a valid way to win.

I'll be interested in seeing how judo compares to Tae Kwon do, since I imagine we'll be watching that, too.

Bird's Nest

I finally watched the Olympics opening ceremony this morning and, while I know I'm not the first person to point this out, I'm so excited by how much of the Olympics' coverage to this point has been focused on the architecture. From the photos I've seen Herzog & de Meuron did a wonderful job with the Bird's Nest (above, photo by the NY Times). I have high hopes that seeing the transformative power of design (a concept I strongly believe in) will inspire others to become architects. Or even better, to respect what architect's do and to hire architects for design projects.

A long time ago (okay, when I was in grad school, so probably only about 5 or 6 years ago), I saw a Rem Koolhaas lecture at UCLA. He presented some very interesting statistics about the percentage of building projects designed by architects (as opposed to being owner or builder designed). I don't have the numbers, but as I recall, the percentage in Europe was very high (not surprising), the percentage in the USA was about middle and the percentage in China was very, very low. It seems to me that as the building boom in China has taken off, this may be changing, but still, most the of the high profile projects have gone to well-known western architects. It just seems that there is not much of a culture of respect for Chinese architects in China. I hope that is changing.