Beijing National Stadium (Bird's Nest) & Water Cube

Why was it built that way? Master-planned along the northern extension of Beijing's historic North-South Central Axis (stretching straight up from the Forbidden City and Jingshan Hill), the two flagship venues of the 2008 Olympic Green were engineered as complementary structural opposites. On the East stands the elliptical National Stadium (Bird's Nest), woven from 42,000 tons of high-strength Q460 steel engineered to withstand Magnitude-8 earthquakes. Directly across the boulevard on the West sits the rectilinear National Aquatics Center (Water Cube), enclosed in 4,000 pneumatic ETFE cushions modeled on Weaire-Phelan soap-bubble geometry to trap 90% of solar energy for heating.

The unbroken Feng Shui thread: The pairing of the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube is one of the finest modern executions of 'Round Heaven, Square Earth' (Tian Yuan Di Fang) and Five-Element Yin-Yang Polarity. Relative to the North-South imperial meridian: the East is the Left Azure Dragon sector (Yang), occupied by the round/elliptical Bird's Nest (Heaven) whose metallic steel lattice cradles a glowing crimson seating bowl (Fire & Metal Yang Qi). The West is the Right White Tiger sector (Yin), occupied by the square Water Cube (Earth) filled with pools and glowing oceanic blue (Water Yin Qi). Round vs. Square, East vs. West, Fire vs. Water stand in equilibrium across the sacred axis (Hexagram 63: Water & Fire in Harmony), while the 2.7km Dragon-Shaped River waterway wraps around the northern park to nourish the entire precinct.