The Plaque Unveiling Ceremony for the IABSE Outstanding Structure Award 2010 took place in the National Aquatics Center on
December 3, 2010. The Ceremony attracted more than 150 participants, including governmental officers, structural design and
construction related people and delegates involved in the realization of the structure. The event was sponsored by Beijing National
Aquatics Center Company Ltd and the Ceremony was hosted by Zhenjiang Sui, Director General of Beijing Urban Construction and
Communications Commission.
Speeches were consecutively given by Predrag Popovic, President of IABSE, Aiqing Li, Board Chairman of Beijing State-Owned Assets
Management Co. Ltd; Xueyi Fu, Chief Engineer of China State Construction International (Shenzhen) Design Consultants Ltd, the main
designer; Qinglian Tang, President of China Civil Engineering Society; Gang Chen, Vice-Mayor of Beijing Municipality, and Yunchong
Guo, Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Construction. Predrag Popovic and Gang Chen then jointly unveiled the
Plaque.
The National Aquatics Center, Beijing, China, has been awarded the 2010 IABSE Outstanding Structure Award for being 'a breathtaking
interlocked soap bubble architecture of ETFE pillows within a polyhedral steel space frame resulting in outstanding aesthetic harmony of
form function and structure which is energy efficient and pleasing to all'. The Outstanding Structure Award recognises the most
remarkable, innovative, creative or otherwise stimulating structure completed within the last few years. The Finalists were the Heathrow
T5A, UK; the Spiral Towers, Japan and the Sutong Bridge, China. The Outstanding Structure Award Committee is chaired by Mr. William
J. Nugent, USA.
The National Aquatics Center known as 'Water Cube' located in Beijing Olympic Park, is the main swimming pool as well as a landmark
of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympic Games. With the completion on January 28, 2008, the Water Cube acted as the main venue for
competitions such as swimming, diving and synchronised swimming. The 177m × 177m National Aquatics Center is divided into three
main pool halls, that is, the hall of the Olympic tournament, a warm-up pool hall and leisure hall, with ETFE bubble wall between each
two of them. On the top of the southeast main entrance there is a space for the visitors to come to feel, experience, touch the bubble.
