Zaha Hadid Completes 2012 London Olympic Aquatic Center

Architizer News

Zaha Hadid Completes 2012 London Olympic Aquatic Center

August 16, 2011

Image (c) hufton + crow, via Design Boom.

Just as Beijing finishes repurposing their Olympic Aquatics Center, Zaha Hadid Architects (who seem to have transformed their once-straightforward website into a navigation hellscape since we last checked in?) have completed work on the massive aquatic center that will be home base for all water events in the 2012 games in London.

Most of the images show the double-curved surface that covers the main pool, imprinted with nodes of spotlights. The two flanking wings are roofed in a sculptural concrete pattern not unlike the formwork in Hadid’s Phaeno Science Center. The technique used in that building — self-compacting concrete — was still developing back in 2006, and much of the facade had to be re-poured soon after completion due to cracking. We’re not sure they used SCC in the Aquatic Center, but hopefully re-pouring won’t be necessary.

By the numbers:

17,500: visitors accommodated.
90 meters: the widest roof span, with a 160 meter span in the opposite direction.
3,000 tons: weight of the roof
850,000: tiles surfacing the pools.

Click through for more images.