Architecture & Olympics AhBoon | 08 Aug 2008
The Most Exicting Venues of Beijing Olympics 2008
The Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, will be celebrated from August 8, 2008, to August 24, 2008, with the opening ceremony beginning at 08:08:08 pm CST (12:08:08 UTC) at the Beijing National Stadium in Beijing, People’s Republic of China.
It is going to begin at tonight; All together 205 countries will be participating in the 2008 Olympic. China and Chinese people are now absolutely ready to celebrate this feast of games.
Altogether 31 venues will be used in Beijing during the 29th Olympiad. All of them have been completed early this year. An additional six cities, namely Hong Kong, Qingdao, Qinhuangdao, Shanghai, Shenyang and Tianjin, will also co-operate with Beijing to run the Equestrian, Sailing and the Football Preliminaries.
Here are some of the exciting venues for Beijing Olympics 2008.
Architecture & Olympics AhBoon | 24 Jul 2008
Bird Nest – The Signature Stadium of Beijing 2008 Olympics
The Beijing National Stadium (北京国家体育场) or the “Bird’s Nest” (鳥巢) for its architecture is a stadium finished for the Olympic Green in Beijing, China that was completed on March 2008.
The stadium will host the main track and field competitions for the 2008 Summer Olympics, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies, and some events for the later Paralympics in September 2008. It is located east of the Beijing National Aquatics Centre (China Water Cube).
This signature stadium is placed in the Olympic Green and occupies 21.4 hectares. It stretches 333 meters from north to south and 298 meters from east to west, covering an area of 258,000 square meters. The National Stadium is 68 meters high and holds 91,000 seats. The construction of the National Stadium began in December of 2003, and the cost was up to 3.5 billion yuan (423 million USD).
The stadium also topped architecture category of the 100 most influential designs in Times magazine earlier this year.
Architecture & Tips & Tricks AhBoon | 25 Jun 2008
Beijing Capital International Airport – Gateway to Olympics
Beijing opens the doors this week to its latest Olympic creation, a massive glass and steel airport terminal with a graceful sloping roof that will welcome visitors to the Summer Games.
Fronted by pillars of deep imperial red, Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital International Airport boasts skylights that give it a dragon-like appearance. The huge, airy interior will have 64 Western and Chinese restaurants, 84 retail shops, and a state-of-the-art-baggage handling system. A high-speed commuter train will whisk passengers into the city, while the runway is capable of handling Airbus’ huge A380 superjumbo.
Designed by British architect Norman Foster, the building attempts to combine traditional architectural elements with up-to-date technology. Its red columns and muted gold roof are meant to evoke Beijing’s imperial palaces and temples. It took just under four years to build the terminal, its runway and most of the related infrastructure, a compressed timetable to ensure it was ready for the Olympics.
The Games are a source of great pride to the Chinese, and Beijing has been turned into a massive construction site over the last seven years as it undergoes a $40 billion makeover.
Architecture & Olympics AhBoon | 07 Apr 2008
The China Water Cube Welcome Olympic Torch
The National Aquatics Center, or simply the “Water Cube,” a blue palatial structure with an area of 80,000 sq m, that was built alongside Beijing National Stadium in the Olympic Green for the 2008 Summer Olympics, completed January 28, 2008.
It is situated to the east of Beichen West Bridge on the North Fourth Ring Road and to the west of National Stadium. Underneath a pure and simple facade, this translucent building embodies a complex and unrestricted framework as well as environmentally advanced technology. It is a class piece of Olympic architecture that has become a landmark structure.
The Water Cube displays its transparent effects under colorful shining lights on Monday night, March 31, 2008, the same day the Olympic torch is welcomed to Beijing at Tian’anmen Square.
Architecture AhBoon | 13 Feb 2008
Manned Cloud – The Flying Hotel
This is an alternative project around leisure and traveling in all its form, economic and experimental, still with the idea of lightness, human experience and life scenarios as the guiding principles. The spiral of Archimedes is the driving force of this airship in the form of a whale that glides through the air.
The airship is a floating hotel called the Manned Cloud, and – according to its designers – it will be capable of circling the globe in a few days.
The 20 bedrooms will provide the ultimate room with a view as the airship cruises at a height of 18,000ft, a capacity of 40 passengers and staffed with 15 persons, that on a 3-day cruise in 170 km/h permits man to explore the world.
It has a restaurant, a library, a lounge and a gym on the first deck.
Architecture AhBoon | 17 Jan 2008
Strange Airports from around the world
Airports are be one of the most sophisticated building, however some airports just built on strange places due to the geographical factors. Here are a collection of some weirdest airports from around the world. I have no idea where are most of these airports located except the one above is from [Lukla Airport] in Nepal, and the [Altiport de Courchevel] in France.
Architecture & Olympics AhBoon | 28 Sep 2007
The Egg is Opening, I mean The National Grand Theater
Workers clean the floor outside the National Grand Theater (also known as The Egg) in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 24, 2007. The National Grand Theater, an egg-shaped structure and a landmark building of China, will have its first trial show on Sept. 25.
The National Grand Theater contains a 2,416-seat opera house, a 2,017-seat concert hall and a 1,040-seat theater. It is scheduled to formally open at the end of the year.
Architecture Konfucious | 26 May 2007
Floating on The Air
The CN Tower, located in Toronto, Canada, is the world’s tallest freestanding structure on land, standing 553.33 meters (1,815 ft 5 in) tall. It is considered the signature icon of the city, attracting more than two million international visitors annually.
Architecture & Travels AhBoon | 05 Apr 2007
A 5-Star Prison in Austria
Life in prison…You think its bad ,well not so bad in this one.
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It looks like an Apple Store, isn’t it?
In Austria there is a prison from your dreams .I am sure that many of you people would leave your homes and go to ‘Justice Center Leoben‘ in Austria. Why ? Check these pictures and say that your house looks better than that one. This place actually calls you to make some crime activities. Only complaint on this cell is there is no computer and Internet in the cells.
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Architecture Konfucious | 02 Apr 2007
The Most Outrages House in the World
Some houses in the city of Zhong Qing, China were scheduled to be demolished on March 21 to make way for the development of the city. However, Yang Wu and his wife Wu Ping refuse to have their house demolished claiming the City has violated their consititution right during the process.
Pending the court judgement on the case, the authority went ahead and demolished all the other houses in the surrounding area, leaving the house of Yang Wu and Wu Ping “untouched”.
Since then, the case has caught the eyes of millions of people in the city and the entire country. At the time of this writing, the couple is still “living” in the house.
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