Shanghai Oriental Sports Center

The sports centre was built on industrial brownfield land along the river as the venue for a world swimming championship. It brings together a swimming stadium, a sports arena, an outdoor pool for high-diving and a media centre.

Water is the theme that runs through it all. Waves, beaches and bridges recur as motifs in both the park and the buildings. The buildings stand on raised platforms reaching into an artificial lake: to the north a soft, curving shoreline wraps around the round stadiums, while the natatorium to the south meets the water along a straight edge. Bridges link the buildings, so each can be seen across a broad stretch of water from an exposed position.

A shared design language, structural idiom and use of materials unite all the stadiums. Steel structures of wide arches carry large triangular panels of coated aluminium, forming double-curved surfaces of the same radius along the frame beneath. The effect is of sails filling with wind.