Photo taken on July 28, 2020 shows an inner view of the iconic "Water Cube" swimming venue from 2008, which now has become the "Ice Cube", a premier curling venue, in Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Zhang Chenlin)
The National Aquatics Center, known as the "Water Cube," became the first venue ready for the Beijing Winter Olympic Games.
BEIJING, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- The renovation of the National Aquatics Center, known as "Water Cube," was completed on Friday, making it the first venue ready for the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, according to the Beijing Major Projects Construction Headquarters Office.
The renovation work involved construction, waterproofing, membrane maintenance and other engineering fields, with an area of about 50,000 square meters.
One of the difficulties to the renovation was to build a convertible structure and install a detachable ice making system in the middle of the competition hall to form a curling field with four standard tracks. After many rounds of tests, the plan of "water ice conversion" found success, enabling conversion materials to be reused, and the transformation cost to be effectively reduced.
The venue has already launched "water ice conversion" for a second time and will be open to the public after the ice production at the site is completed.
For the sustainable operation of the venue, the "Water Cube" also uses the underground space of South Square to construct two pieces of ice. One is a standard rink and the other is a curling venue. It will be open to the public as a curling experience base in the central area of Beijing's Olympic Park. ■
