Spotted: Beijing Water Cube

The Olympic Games opened today and I couldn't care less. I would not like to offend anyone, but I simply can't see any reason to watch sports on TV; after working most days sitting in front a computer monitor, I prefer to engage in some real sport activities like hiking or biking in the surrounding hills or mountains.

However, there is something interesting for me about these Games, and of course it's The Water Cube.

I was stunned when I first saw the photos of the building - it was under construction and it was after my discovery of Voronoi diagrams. Mixed feelings flew through my veins. On the one hand, I was happy that something so similar to Voronoi was actually being built, and on such a large scale. On the other hand, I knew that most of the people, when they'd see my work, would say "Oh, you're doing a kind of bubble-building, just something like the Beijing Water Cube. Not very innovative."

Let's put the question of originality aside. The Water Cube is a fascinating building, it really looks like a bunch of bubbles, but it's geometry isn't based on Voronoi diagrams. I learned that the geometry behind is Weaire-Phelan structure.

Well, Voronoi, Steiner trees, Weaire-Phelan... it all looks the same - bubbles.

It's really brave to actually build that kind of architecture. I wonder how it will age. It's certainly a peak of today's engineering, maybe even one of the wonders of the new world; pitty it surely won't last as long as the old ones. They don't do these kind of wonders anymore :-)