As we approach the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, there will be a lot of stories about China and its environment. Let’s veer away from that for a second and enjoy the new Aquatics Centre they have built, next door to the iconic bird’s nest Olympic Stadium.

Working with the engineering firm Arup, which also collaborated on the Bird’s Nest, PTW developed cladding made of variously sized cells of ETFE, or ethylene tetrafluoroethylene, a translucent plastic somewhat similar to Teflon. Among architects, ETFE is the material of the moment—Herzog and de Meuron used it for the façade of their Munich stadium and for the roof of the Bird’s Nest—and it has many practical virtues. It weighs only one per cent as much as glass, transmits light more effectively, and is a better insulator, resulting in a thirty-per-cent saving in energy costs.

Cool stuff.

Photo Credit: BBC News.