Beijing’s iconic Water Cube comes to Hong Kong

In the lead up to Rio, German architect Chris Bosse has added to the city’s Olympic fever by installing replica of his famed indoor swimming pool

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Chris Bosse, the designer of Beijing Olympics' Water Cube, poses for a photograph at New Town Plaza in Shatin. Photo: David Wong

Published: 6:59pm, 1 Aug 2016Updated: 7:14pm, 1 Aug 2016

German architect Chris Bosse has brought a piece of the Olympics to Hong Kong by installing a replica of Beijing’s famed Water Cube indoor swimming pool in one of the city’s busiest malls.

Coinciding with the Rio Olympics, which start Friday, Bosse designed a 32-panel replica of the honeycomb walls of the Water Cube. The piece, named “Sportivation In Town”, has been installed inside New Town Plaza shopping centre in Sha Tin.

The panels form a canopy over a 2.5 metre-long LED display, which will screen animations of nine different Olympic sports, from swimming to fencing, when the piece is officially unveiled next week.

Bosse is renowned for designing the Water Cube, which was one of the centrepieces of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

“This is pretty much a 1:1 representation,” Bosse said, referring to how he had rebuilt several of the original Water Cube’s nine metre-high bubble molecules to full scale.

But unlike the original, the replica panels are made of Lyra, the material found in swimsuits, to reduce weight and maintain strength. Weighing a thousand times less than glass, Bosse said the Lyra suited his “more with less” design motto.