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Lessons Learned from Managing the Design of the Water Cube National
Swimming Centre for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

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DOI: 10.3763/aedm.2010.0114

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ARTICLE

Lessons Learned from Managing the

Design of the ‘Water Cube’ National
Swimming Centre for the Beijing 2008
Olympic Games
Patrick X. W. Zou1, * and Rob Leslie-Carter2
1
Faculty of the Built Environment, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
2
Arup Project Management, Sydney, Australia

Abstract
This article discusses the main lessons learned from the management of the design of the ‘Water Cube’ National
Swimming Aquatic Centre (a landmark building for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games), including forming an
international partnership, managing cultural differences and risks, dealing with intellectual property and
ownership of design to establish a legacy. The article also discusses design management strategies and
innovations. It was found that Beijing’s lack of regulatory transparency, regional differences and a relationship-
based business culture were some of the factors that made China a challenging project environment. Cultural
understanding and relationship (guanxi) building were fundamental strategies in responding to these
challenges. It was also found that developing a shared ownership of intellectual property and innovative design
ideas may facilitate the collaboration between Western and Chinese partners. In addition, it was necessary for
the foreign design and project management teams to be continuously involved in the construction stage to
ensure the conversion of design into reality, construction quality and personal fulfilment.

B Keywords – China; design innovation; design management; guanxi; interface management; international project

INTRODUCTION AND AIM
The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games provided great
opportunities for international architecture,
engineering and construction firms to demonstrate
their ability in design and project management.
Considering the new technologies, new materials
and innovative designs adopted in the Olympic
projects, coupled with the complexity of design and
construction as well as the diversified cultural
backgrounds of the project teams, there were many
challenges for the design and construction of these
projects. As such, many lessons can be learned from
the successful projects. For example, the ‘Water
Cube’ National Swimming Aquatic Centre, one of the
landmark buildings for the Beijing 2008 Olympic
Games, provided a number of successful project
management practices and strategies. This article
uses the ‘Water Cube’ as a successful international
complex project to investigate and document the
lessons learned, which could be a useful reference
for future project and design management in
international building/construction projects.
PROJECT BRIEF AND OBJECTIVES
The functional requirements for the Water Cube
project included a 50m competition pool, a 33m
diving pool and a 50m warm-up pool. The main pool
hall was to have 17,000 seats and the whole facility

B *Corresponding author: Email: p.zou@unsw.edu.au

ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING AND DESIGN MANAGEMENT B 2010 B VOLUME 6 B 175–188

doi:10.3763/aedm.2010.0114 ª2010 Earthscan ISSN: 1745-2007 (print), 1752-7589 (online) www.earthscan.co.uk/journals/aedm
176 P. X. W. ZOU AND R. LESLIE-CARTER

had to accommodate everything required for an

Olympic operational overlay. Following the Games,
the main pool hall was to be reduced to 7000 seats,
with other facilities added in order to make the
Aquatic Centre a viable long-term legacy. The Beijing
Municipal Government expected to successfully build
the best Olympic swimming venue that would then
become a popular and well-used leisure and training
facility after the Games. It included several criteria:

l Quality: the best Olympic swimming venue

representing the spirit of the Beijing Olympics –
‘the green games, the high-tech games and the
people’s games’.
l Cost: no more than US$100 million before the
Olympics and US$10 million for its conversion to
legacy mode.
l Time: the construction was to start before the end
of 2003 and be completed at least six months
before the opening of the Olympic Games (i.e. six
months before 8 August 2008) to allow a sufficient
period for trial competitive events.

THE ARCHITECTURAL FORM

The Water Cube concept was inspired partly by its
neighbour, the ‘Bird’s Nest’ Olympic Stadium. It sits
next to the glowing Bird’s Nest National Stadium,
and the two opposing shapes are in ‘yin-yang’
harmony, a key concept in Chinese culture. For
example, the Water Cube is blue against the
Stadium’s red, water vs. fire, square vs. round, male
vs. female, earth vs. heaven. The two sites are
separated by a protected historic axis to Beijing’s
Forbidden City.
The Water Cube Aquatic Centre design portrays
the way in which humanity relates to water and the
harmonious coexistence of humans and nature,
which in Chinese culture is life’s ultimate blessing.
The flat ceiling is a feature that signifies peace and
stability. The entire square site accommodates the
client’s requirements, effectively fixing a square
footprint for the building. The cube-shaped concept
is a subtle, thought-provoking design representing
the beauty and serenity of calm, untroubled water.
Figure 1 shows the Water Cube building from its
design imagination to reality.
FIGURE 1 The ‘Water Cube’ – from vision to reality: (a) the
design vision, (b) during construction and (c) the constructed facility
Source: www.beijingolympicsfan.com
The structural solution was based on the formation
of soap bubbles. Due to its complexity (the structure
consists of 22,000 steel members and 12,000
nodes), the entire building was modelled in four
dimensions. Numerous new techniques and pieces
of software were developed specifically for the
Water Cube project to generate the geometry,
create a physical prototype, optimize the structural
performance, analyse acoustics, smoke spread
and pedestrian egress, and provide construction
documentation in a fully automated 4D sequence.
The Water Cube is an insulated greenhouse that
maximizes the use of ‘carbon-free’ solar energy for
both heating and lighting. The use of ethylene
tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE – a kind of plastic) in lieu
of glass creates a superior acoustic environment,
reduces the weight of material supported by the

ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING AND DESIGN MANAGEMENT

 Lessons Learned from Managing the Design of the ‘Water Cube’ National Swimming Centre 177
structure, improves seismic performance, and is
self-cleaning and recyclable. The roof collects and
reuses all rainwater that falls on the building. The
building is the result of integrating the technical
requirements of all the relevant engineering
disciplines (not the result of a single dominant one),
and without performance-based fire engineering (a
first for China) the Water Cube would not exist.
MANAGING THE WATER CUBE’S DESIGN
The Water Cube was the result of an international
design competition with 10 shortlisted participants,
judged by a panel of architects, engineers and
pre-eminent Chinese academics in 2003. The winner
was a Sydney-based joint venture (JV) team
consisting of Arup, PTW Architects and China
Construction Design International (CCDI). This team
was made up of more than 100 engineers and
specialists, spread across 20 disciplines and four
FIGURE 2 The Water Cube project design and management team
countries, and was led by Arup Project Management.
Figure 2 shows the composition of team members
involved in design and management, with particular
focus on personnel in project management. Arup
Project Management led and coordinated the design
process, and managed both the internal and external
interfaces.
Key threads of the project implementation
strategy covered everything from establishing a
communication strategy, through to the dynamics of
team leadership, a risk management strategy
focused on the complex and dynamic nature of the
Chinese market, and management of differences
between Chinese and Australian stakeholders.
It was a fast-track programme with design
delivered from competition stage through to a fully
approved scheme and continued through to the
official opening of the Water Cube. Furthermore, as
well as delivering a fully coordinated scheme design,
ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING AND DESIGN MANAGEMENT
178 P. X. W. ZOU AND R. LESLIE-CARTER
it also involved regular handover of the design to the
Chinese design partners for detailing, while ensuring
that the technical approvals were all obtained and
that the innovative design was understood, accepted
and then constructed safely. Ensuring that the Water
Cube became a reality was achieved by establishing
and maintaining clarity of the design vision, and full
and transparent collaboration between the JV parties
Arup, PTW Architects and CCDI.
DEVELOPING DESIGN MANAGEMENT
STRATEGIES
Recognizing the scale and complexity of the
challenge, a two-day workshop with key design
team members was held to produce a roadmap for
the project. The agenda produced for the workshop
is shown in Figure 3.
The implementation plan workshop focused initially
on the need to articulate and communicate a very clear
project vision for the Water Cube design. This was
FIGURE 3 The Water Cube project implementation plan
ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING AND DESIGN MANAGEMENT
intended to have multiple benefits. Most simply, the
vision would provide improved clarity and autonomy
to the design team members. This would help to
achieve a high-quality outcome in a very short period
of time, by allowing parallel streams of activities to
converge quickly and accurately. It was also hoped
that having a robust vision would greatly help to
achieve alignment and buy-in from other project
stakeholders. The workshop resulted in eight threads,
which were to form the basis for the project’s future
development:
l The site plan and urban design – sitting opposite
the National Stadium in yin-yang harmony, the
two sites are separated by a protected historic axis
to Beijing’s Forbidden City. Red vs. blue, fire
vs. water, round vs. square, female vs. male,
heaven vs. earth.
l A building full of water made from bubbles – a pure
combination of form and function.
 Lessons Learned from Managing the Design of the ‘Water Cube’ National Swimming Centre 179
l A building harnessing the benefits of nature – the
biomimicry of bubbles and the translation of
theoretical physics into a unique building form.
Portraying the harmonious coexistence of man and
nature.
l A big blue ‘green’ building – this technically
performs well in terms of heat, light, sound,
structure and water; hence function is not
sacrificed in the name of art. Instead art is made
from function.
l A 3D world – the giant strides made in 3D design
and analysis technology, without which this project
simply could not have been fully conceived or
documented.
l Next technology – the use of high-tech materials to
minimize energy consumption.
l Spiritually uplifting inside and outside – the square
shape of the building reflects Chinese philosophies
of a square representing earth and a circle
representing heaven.
l Total, equitable and transparent partnership –
between Arup, PTW Architects and CCDI.
These eight threads were initially used as a guide to
brief the design team and partners. They proved
invaluable in discussions with external stakeholders
and local approval authorities, who were able to buy
into the overall vision and understand how they
could contribute to achieving that vision. Following
the workshop, the content of the Water Cube
implementation plan was approved. Establishing key
project management strategies and their rapid and
successful implementation were fundamental in
shaping the success of the Water Cube.
The binding thread in the success of the Water
Cube project was the quality and depth of
communication both internally and externally. As well
as day-to-day team communication and information
management processes, the communication strategy
established the vision and key messages, and how
these would be integrated into daily project life. The
strategy also encompassed the need for the
continuous incorporation of lessons learned in
dealing with stakeholders at different locations, and
with different cultures and languages. In doing so, it
provided a vehicle for relationship management and
stakeholder engagement.
Unique to this building is the direct comparison
with the model produced for the international design
competition, and the actual Water Cube when it
opened five years later. It is remarkable that a vision
and a reality aligned perfectly – a very powerful
lesson in terms of the importance of capturing and
communicating a clear direction at the start of the
project.
INNOVATIONS
Several innovations were implemented in this project,
as discussed below.
DEVELOPING THE TOOLS TO DELIVER
The Water Cube was a catalyst for the establishment
of a range of bespoke project management planning
and monitoring tools needed to deliver such a large
multidisciplinary project, delivered across different
offices, and with a programme that demanded
reporting, monitoring and action to happen in real
time. A range of project management tools were
established for the Water Cube. These include
simple protocols for shared servers and email filing
between multiple offices, technical management of
project interfaces, safety in design (i.e. designing for
safety) and construction sequencing, through to
more complex programming applications that interface
with the cost monitoring system to provide detailed
forecasting and performance-reporting capabilities
such as resource management and earned-value
management.
INTERFACE MANAGEMENT
It was a challenge to coordinate 20 specialist
engineering disciplines, ensuring that the complex
interfaces of the Water Cube were properly
understood and documented. The project
management team introduced an interface
management strategy that divided the component
parts of the Water Cube into volumes defined by
physical and time boundaries, which were described
in a project volume register. Each volume was owned
by a sub-project team best placed to manage the
coordination. At the very start of the design process,
the project management team identified volumes and
assigned owners. An interface occurred when
anything touched or crossed a boundary. Initially all
ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING AND DESIGN MANAGEMENT
180 P. X. W. ZOU AND R. LESLIE-CARTER
high- and low-level interfaces were identified and
captured on a register, and regular interface
management and coordination meetings were held
involving all parties (Figure 4). The external interfaces
were classified as either:
l Physical – an identified and documented point or
plane common to two or more parties at which a
physical and potential performance
interdependency exists. Examples of physical
interfaces are the location of an underground
service, space allocation, duct route, etc.
l Functional – an identified and documented
relationship between two parties at which a
performance independence exists. Examples of
functional interfaces are power requirements,
network connection, data connectivity, etc.
l Organizational and contractual – an identified and
documented relationship between two parties at
which a delineation in scope or contractual
responsibility exists. Examples of organizational
interfaces include the development of details by
Chinese design partners CCDI based on Arup
scheme designs, or interfaces between civil
engineering and architectural landscaping
documentation, etc.
l Operational – an identified and documented
relationship between two parties at which a
delineation in operational responsibility exists.
Examples of operational interfaces include
FIGURE 4 The volume strategy to resolve complex interfaces
ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING AND DESIGN MANAGEMENT
maintenance for equipment under warranty with
ongoing maintenance and replacement by the
operator, and the short-term responsibilities for
Olympic overlay compared with pre-Olympics
mode and then legacy mode.
The management of interfaces became one of the
most important functions of the project
management team during the design. Especially in
the short timeframe, the elimination of mistakes at
interfaces (e.g. missing or wrongly placed ducts,
service clashes) meant that the documentation
handed over to the other partners for further work
needed to be robust. In the longer term, it also
generated one of the largest possible savings in
construction cost compared with current practice.
DESIGNING FOR SAFETY AND 4D SEQUENCING
At the implementation plan workshop, the project
management team made a strong commitment to
explore the risk-prone activities likely to occur in the
construction of the Water Cube, and how to improve
safety by following a ‘safety in design’ approach.
This included producing documentation that
would improve safety awareness, and suggesting
planned and logical methods for construction and
maintenance. Using the UK Construction Design and
Management (CDM) Regulations (1994 and 2007)
and relevant Australian legislation, the ‘safety in
 Lessons Learned from Managing the Design of the ‘Water Cube’ National Swimming Centre 181
design’ approach was intended to ensure that unusual
hazards and risks (such as post-Olympic alterations to
the internal fit-out, and working-at-height hazards
involved in the maintenance of light fittings
or adjusting broadcasting equipment) were eliminated
or controlled at the design stage wherever possible.
The final hazard risk register was included with the
tender documentation along with recommendations
that it be incorporated into the safety management
plans for the various package contractors on site. It
also included graphical suggestions for construction
sequencing such as for the superstructure space frame.
The 3D structural model was linked with a sequential
timeline and became a 4D model.
THE PROJECT DESIGN AND MANAGEMENT
TEAM
RESOURCING A WINNING TEAM
Due to the short timeframes available to progress the
design from competition stage through to a fully
approved scheme, the team needed to mobilize very
quickly, with the right people. To achieve this, the
project management team began engaging selected
Arup engineers and specialists in a series of formal
and informal briefings about the Water Cube and the
potential opportunities for team members. By
generating a sense of excitement and anticipation,
key team members were identified.
LEADING CLEVER PEOPLE
Due to the innovative design concepts and materials
proposed for the Water Cube, the team needed to
include a high proportion of analysts and
programmers, capable of developing the new
analytical approaches and techniques required to
realize the project. In terms of the team dynamics and
leadership style, typically these professional individuals
resist being led, resist working to deadlines and dislike
centralized management structures, and leadership
needs to earn their respect. In recognition of this, the
project management team focused on providing these
people with a safe environment where they could
experiment (and fail), and on protecting them from the
administration distractions that occur in a project of
this scale. For example, specialist project managers
took responsibility for all project establishment, internal
reporting, commercial issues, and identifying and
coordinating the technical interfaces. This allowed
specialist designers to focus more purely on design.
HUNTING IN PACKS
To remove potential pinch points from specific key
staff becoming overloaded, and to allow technical
staff more freedom, project managers established
semi-independent teams with their own leadership,
to progress in parallel streams. These teams
included design, product research, stakeholder
engagement and commercial issues such as scope,
contract and fees: for example, establishment of
clear interfaces to allow the finalization of structural
geometry and research into the ETFE façade
performance to proceed without holding up the
general space planning of the building. On the
back of the success of the Water Cube, it was
effective to employ a model of having specialist
project managers providing leadership, while giving
freedom to technical staff to add more value to the
design process. Embedding project management
into the business was more easily accepted, as the
specialist project managers also had technical
engineering backgrounds. In this way they were able
to contribute at all levels, rather than ever being
perceived as a ‘non-technical’ overhead.
ACHIEVING PROJECT OUTCOMES
This section discusses project outcomes in relation to
client expectations.
CREATE THE BEST OLYMPIC SWIMMING
VENUE
Designing the fastest of ‘fast pools’ for Beijing was
very much part of the design team’s proposals in the
competition entry. Most obviously, the pool design
minimized turbulence for swimmers through a
constant 3m pool depth (compared with 2m for the
Athens Olympics), extra wide pool lanes and empty
lanes at each side, lane separators designed to
dissipate wake and perimeter gutters designed for
wave surge control. There were also unseen allies
designed in, such as maintaining the right water
chemical balance and water temperature critical to a
swimmer’s performance, and a displacement air
conditioning system designed to maintain a layer of
fresh oxygenated air across the pool surface.
ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING AND DESIGN MANAGEMENT
182 P. X. W. ZOU AND R. LESLIE-CARTER
One of the less tangible factors was the ‘energy’
of the Water Cube. The ‘energy’ is, in fact,
thoughtfully designed, not just through the uplifting
experience of the Water Cube internal space, but
also through the back-of-house areas, warm-up and
warm-down facilities for the athletes, the positioning
and proximity of the 17,000-seat spectator areas,
and the lighting, acoustics and air quality of the
building.
The Water Cube amazed visitors and inspired
athletes at the 2008 Olympic Games, hosting the
swimming, diving and water polo events. The
Olympic events opened at the pool meaning the
Water Cube immediately become the global face of
the Games, and a total of 42 gold medals were
awarded there. The fastest times in 21 of the 32
Olympic swimming events now belong to the Water
Cube – in total, 22 world records were set in what is
now the fastest pool in the world.
In the short time since its opening, the Water Cube
has become one of the iconic projects of the 21st
century – a representation of a new Beijing and, by
extension, a new China. It showcases China’s
determination to establish itself as a leading
destination for world sporting events.
SPEND NO MORE THAN US$100M
The construction contract for the project was let at
US$100 million, which was the budget set for the
Water Cube Aquatic Centre before the design
competition. There was an additional US$10 million
allocated to its conversion post-Olympics, removing
10,000 seats and building additional commercial
space. To design a building for this budget is a
remarkable feat considering that it has 70,000m2 of
internal floor space, 100,000m2 of cladding and all
the complex plants required to run three competition
pools and a very large leisure centre.
As part of setting the project objectives, the
project management team led a value management
exercise to optimize the space planning of the Water
Cube without compromising any of the project
objectives. This structured approach led to a
reduction of building area and costs of nearly 10%,
and set the tone for an efficient building design that
the Beijing Municipal Government had confidence
could be delivered within the budget.
ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING AND DESIGN MANAGEMENT
One key factor built into the design is its
buildability – despite the building’s apparent
complexity and because the structure is based on
repetitive geometry, the sub-components repeat
across the building. There are only four different
nodal geometries, three typical member lengths and
22 different ETFE pillow shapes. This deliberate
approach greatly reduced the time required for
production and installation, and the fabrication and
installation costs.
The Water Cube is flexibly designed to reduce
from 17,000 seats to 7000 seats post-Olympics,
which will allow for the addition of commercial
space inside and a switch to the ongoing legacy
operation of the building. The Water Cube will still
be the National Aquatic Centre with the facilities we
have seen at the Olympics. However, its main future
revenue will be from a huge leisure pool the size of
four Olympic pools – hence the Water Cube will be
socially and economically sustainable as well as
environmentally sustainable.
Alongside the Bird’s Nest, the Water Cube is the
representation of Beijing’s emergence as a truly
global city. The greatest gift to Beijing, generated
from the public exposure and excitement around its
Olympic venues, will be the social and economic
benefits that will now follow.
CREATE A GREEN GAMES
Beijing has for a long time been blighted by heavy air
pollution from factories and coal-fired power stations
within the city itself, and an unstoppable growth of
motor traffic pushing its transport infrastructure
towards permanent gridlock. Today, more than 1000
new cars come onto the roads of Beijing every day. In
the build-up to the Olympic opening ceremony, the
question was what Beijing could achieve in a very short
period of time – and if the national stadium would be
shrouded in smog on the first day of the Games.
As well as contributing to the green Games
through its sustainable design initiatives, the Water
Cube is raising environmental awareness in society
more broadly through its unique design thinking. It
responds to the question: ‘How should a building
best harness the benefits of nature?’ The answer
was to design and deliver an insulated greenhouse
using minimal materials. The resulting building
 Lessons Learned from Managing the Design of the ‘Water Cube’ National Swimming Centre 183
naturally heats the swimming pools, lights itself,
catches and stores rainwater, and can resist some of
the largest seismic forces in the world.
The design and construction of the Water Cube
aimed at improving the ecological environment. It
was a shining light in the national effort to drastically
improve the environmental quality of Beijing in the
run-up to the Olympics. The Water Cube is not just
an exercise of symbolism. In terms of iconic Beijing
buildings, the Water Cube represents a real
transition from the traditional monumental communist
architecture around Tiananmen Square to a future
that is more about conserving resources, building
more delicately and sustainably.
Of course, China needs to invest in long-term
environmental solutions, and the hope is that after
the Olympic coming-out party, the Water Cube will
act as an inspiration for future development, so that
local architects and engineers will channel their
ideas and the unstoppable rate of development in
Beijing into quality design solutions that are
sustainable.
CREATE A HIGH-TECH GAMES
The Olympic Games was a window for Beijing to
showcase its high-tech achievements and innovative
capacity. The Water Cube design adopted the
world’s best technology practices to ensure that the
swimming events were hosted in an ultra high-tech
environment. The design teams used their global
knowledge resources to design a ‘fast pool’,
including research and negotiations with Federation
Internationale de Natation (FINA) regarding
improvement in pool shape, water filtration and
audiovisual projections. The pool was deliberately
opened six months before the Olympics to allow for
competition-level testing and optimization of the
conditions for competitors.
CREATE A PEOPLE’S GAMES
Hosting of the Olympic Games was an opportunity to
popularize the Olympic spirit, promote traditional
Chinese culture, and showcase the history and
development of Beijing as well as the friendliness
and hospitality of its citizens. The Water Cube is
thought of as the people’s venue in Beijing, receiving
more than a million votes from the people of China
during the International Design Competition. No
matter where they are from, people seem to share a
common reaction towards the Water Cube: it has
a soothing power and a calming effect. The square
shape of the building reflects the Chinese
philosophy of a square representing earth and a
circle representing heaven.
The Water Cube has acted as a bridge for cultural
exchanges and has deepened the understanding,
trust and friendship among project team members
and stakeholders. This was achieved by establishing
and maintaining clarity of the design vision,
communicating that vision to project stakeholders
with differing cultural expectations, and the
outstanding collaboration between the JV parties –
Arup, PTW Architects and CCDI. The design in
essence epitomizes the wishes, hopes and dreams
of the Chinese people, and because it was chosen
by them, it belongs to them and is something they
can be proud of for centuries to come.
LESSONS LEARNED
LESSON 1 – FORMING AN INTERNATIONAL
PARTNERSHIP
The unusual thing about the Beijing Olympics is that
international designers were invited to participate at
all – which was not the case in Sydney and other
previous Olympic host cities. One reason was that
the challenge was of such a huge scale that Beijing
recognized it needed solutions from both home and
abroad. This attitude set the tone for a genuine
two-way collaboration on the Water Cube – where
Western and Eastern perspectives worked together
with mutual respect and openness.
Generally speaking, project-oriented JV is one of
the major entrance models of international companies
for undertaking business in countries other than
their motherhood (Ng et al., 2007). This is partly
because the specific political and macro-economical
conditions in the host country may significantly
impact project performance. Furthermore, the
unique characteristics of each project are highly
associated with JV performance, and appropriate
strategies should be developed to handle particular
risks and problems associated with the project
(Ozorhon et al., 2007; Zou et al., 2007; Zou and
Wong, 2008). When focusing on international
ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING AND DESIGN MANAGEMENT
184 P. X. W. ZOU AND R. LESLIE-CARTER
construction projects in China, the five most important
factors leading to JV success are selection of
partners, clear statement of JV agreement, obtaining
information about potential partners, partners’
objectives and control of the ownership of the capital
(Gale and Luo, 2003).
The Water Cube team also came about after some
very deliberate relationship building by Arup and PTW
in the build-up to the international design competition.
In 2003, Sydney had the halo effect of having just
hosted ‘the best Olympic Games ever’ and what was
regarded as the fastest pool ever, which had also
been designed by Arup and PTW. Arup had also
recently designed the Shenzhen Aquatic Centre from
its Sydney office, and hence understood some of the
challenges of working in China as an international firm.
Specifically, the opportunity to align with Chinese
design partners CCDI and their parent company
CSCEC (China’s biggest construction firm) came
about from building up relationships and Arup’s
reputation through a series of visits to China to
present credentials, to present the engineering
behind ‘fast pools’ and to discuss the opportunities
for collaboration for the Beijing Games.
The legacy of the authenticity of the team is the
fact that the Water Cube was generated by equally
integrating the requirements of Arup’s engineering,
PTW’s space planning and Chinese cultural
influences on the architecture from CCDI. It was not
the result of any one single dominant party, which
remains a powerful statement in terms of the
outstanding collaboration established among this
international partnership.
LESSON 2 – MANAGING CULTURAL RISKS AND
DIFFERENCES
When managing projects in China, a particularly
important issue that foreign firms need to face is
how to manage the cultural differences (Zou et al.,
2007, 2009), especially for companies with
traditional Western culture backgrounds. Different
cultures may lead to significant differences in project
management styles and capacities (Zwikael et al.,
2005). Understanding organizational and national
culture, cross-cultural communication, negotiation
and dispute resolution are considered to be the
most important issues for the project management
ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING AND DESIGN MANAGEMENT
process in China, where personal relationships are
very important and teamwork is preferred to make
decisions (Low and Leong, 1999). For the Water
Cube, how to manage communication both internally
and externally, as well as how to handle the
relationship with all parties involved in the project,
was critical to the success of the project.
For the cross-cultural management of construction
projects in China, one of the most important issues is
guanxi (Zou and Wong, 2008), which refers to
relationships or social connections based on mutual
interests and benefits (Yang, 1999). In general,
guanxi and Western relationship marketing do share
some basic characteristics as mutual understanding,
but they have quite different underlying mechanisms
(Arias, 1998; Zou et al., 2009). In contrast with
relationship marketing, guanxi works at a personal
level on the basis of friendship, and affection is a
measure of the level of emotional commitment and
the closeness of the parties involved (Wang, 2005).
When doing business or managing projects in China,
developing an effective guanxi with local Chinese
partners is a key factor for most companies, in spite
of the type and scope of projects. However, because
of the complexity of guanxi, some guanxi issues are
more important than others for certain types of
projects. For example, the external coalitions among
guanxi partners that can contribute more resources to
a firm’s survival are certainly more important than
coalitions that contribute fewer resources. Further,
guanxi strategies should be dynamic and changing
along with business timing and location (Su et al., 2007).
Ling et al. (2007a) suggested that in order to
implement a superior project management practice
in China, international construction companies should
increase their financial strength to overcome the
‘blank’ period before making a profit. International
companies should also prepare a high-quality
contract and project schedule as early as possible
during the pre-contracting and planning stage. To
control cost, time and quality issues during the
construction stage, international firms should
control cultural difference risks and language barrier
risks to avoid misunderstanding, provide adequate
equipment and employ qualified workmen. Further,
Ling et al. (2007b) pointed out the importance of
minimizing claims or disputes in the contract,
 Lessons Learned from Managing the Design of the ‘Water Cube’ National Swimming Centre 185
adequate provision of equipment to deliver the
service, strong financial strength and management,
controlling resources and cost, appointing qualified
professional staff, good quality control and
management plans, and having more face-to-face
communication than written communication.
Likewise, Gunhan and Arditi (2005) stated that a
good track record, project management capability, a
broad international network, technology, and
material and equipment advantages are the most
important strengths of international construction
companies for entering a new market.
In international construction project management,
while companies face threats from key employee
losses, financial resources, international economy
fluctuation, foreign competition and cultural
differences are also some other major risks (Ling
et al., 2007b). Further, it is worth noting that project
management in China is still immature, with the
main problems being lack of qualified and
experienced project management practitioners,
conflict between client and project management
companies, distorted competition in the project
management market and the time of appointing
project management companies (Liu et al., 2004).
For the Water Cube project, what was more
challenging for the project management team than the
technical aspects, and ultimately far more rewarding,
was learning and understanding the business culture
and context in China. It was not only ‘foreign’ to the
team at the start of the project, but also highly difficult
to read. To resolve this problem, implementation plan
workshops and follow-up sessions were held with all
the parties involved in designing the project,
particularly with Chinese team members, to agree on
the approach to the early ‘management of difference’.
The workshops served as a platform for bringing the
team together to exchange ideas and information and
discussions of key issues. These workshops partly
focused on maintaining leverage over commercial
arrangements, but mainly looked at how to minimize
and manage the risks of the specific differences in
norms, practices and expectations through project
implementation.
The complex and dynamic nature of the Chinese
market, particularly in the context of the Olympics,
meant that the risks associated with delivering the
Water Cube project could not be underestimated.
Beijing’s lack of regulatory transparency, regional
differences and a relationship-based business
culture were among the factors that made China a
challenging project environment.
The project management team identified a diverse
range of risks, trying to understand and plan an
approach to the project in the unfamiliar context of
China’s legal, social, cultural, economic and
technological environment. Other than the commercial
risk of delayed payment, the key risks identified were
social – how China’s business culture may affect the
relationships and dynamics within the international
Water Cube team and with the external stakeholders
involved in approving the design concept.
Social risks such as cultural misunderstandings
could have completely derailed or significantly
delayed the Water Cube project. Relationship
building is fundamental in Chinese business; hence
understanding guanxi – a form of social networking
– and how to authentically cultivate and manage it
was vital to the project management team. Other
important factors in the approach included
emphasizing the team’s international reputation and
the depth and diversity of its activities and locations.
Arup also planned to ensure that all its interactions
with Chinese stakeholders involved giving them the
highest possible quality of service, in terms of both
the material issued and the staff directly involved
with them. For example, well-respected senior
engineers from its Beijing and Hong Kong offices
were directly involved at key stages of the approval
process. Their influence and local knowledge of the
Chinese legislation, coupled with their involvement
in other high-profile Olympic projects in Beijing,
were leveraged to convince some conservative
authorities to accept a range of innovative
approaches to the engineering design that did not
follow the prescriptive rules of the Chinese building
codes. This was the number one risk in the
early stages of the project, and the formal
approval of the engineering design in early 2004 set
a major precedent and direction for other Olympic
projects.
Another example was the commercial negotiations.
The project has been a financial success in that it
made an acceptable profit despite the considerable
ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING AND DESIGN MANAGEMENT
186 P. X. W. ZOU AND R. LESLIE-CARTER
risks of working on such a fast-track project, with
international partners and stakeholders, involving
such groundbreaking design techniques and
materials. This is largely because the project
managers were very specific during contract
negotiations to clearly define their scope of services
and the interfaces with Chinese design partners, and
were robust in contract negotiations that removed
the project management company (i.e. Arup) from
some of the post-Olympic payment milestones that
were unrelated to the project scope. By deliberately
resolving any potential conflicts early, the project
management was able to sign a contract and
facilitate a smooth and seamless handover to the
Chinese partners with clearly understood and
accepted interfaces.
LESSON 3 – LACK OF INVOLVEMENT IN THE
CONSTRUCTION STAGE
One aspect that could have been improved was being
able to secure a role for the project management team
during the construction phase and also post-Olympics
for conversion to legacy mode. During contract
negotiations, the Chinese partner CCDI wanted to
limit its overall fee bid by resourcing elements of the
detailed design and site supervision locally from
Beijing. While Arup’s project management team
successfully managed to ring-fence its design role,
its proposal to maintain even a skeleton supervisory
role during construction to help ensure the design
intent was achieved was seen as an avoidable cost
by the Chinese design partners. So the project
management team was not formally involved in the
construction stage, and this led to several issues
regarding the interface and integration between
design ideas and site construction. For example, for
the steelwork and ETFE façade, the project
management company sent staff to Beijing at its
own cost, but this became increasingly difficult as
security measures tightened during the months
leading up to the Water Cube’s opening. Further,
some modifications to minor details were decided
on site, generally driven by changes to overlay and
operator requirements. There are examples where
these decisions are not as the project management
would have proposed had it been involved. This lack
of involvement of the project management
ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING AND DESIGN MANAGEMENT
company in construction had some implications on
quality.
Less tangible than the quality of construction
details was the potential effect on the project
management team members of being partially
excluded from the construction stage activities. It is
a fundamental part of projects that designers get
enormous satisfaction from seeing their designs
become reality. There is traditionally an ongoing role
for engineers responding to site issues, attending
coordination meetings with contractors, and being
involved in final commissioning and handover. All
these are important parts of the ownership that
engineers ascribe to their work, and their motivation
to be part of future teams.
To rectify this, the project management team
developed an internal communication strategy at the
outset of the project, which included engaging staff
before and during the project through presentations,
briefings, newsletters and regular celebrations of
milestones. However, it was only after the
construction work had commenced and the role
diminished that the project management team
realized that there was a gap in their involvement in
actually experiencing the Water Cube being built.
The situation was highlighted even further by the
geographical separation from Beijing, and the
ever-increasing levels of security and bureaucracy
about site access.
Ultimately in the case of the Water Cube – with its
crystal-clear design vision and high profile – Arup’s
lack of involvement during the construction stage
did not have a significant negative effect on either
the quality of the outcome or the level of ownership
among the design team. However, Arup’s project
managers have issued a report to CCDI highlighting
this as a valuable lesson learned, and quantifying the
added value it could have brought to more than
offset any additional fees.
LESSON 4 – ESTABLISHING A LEGACY
As the great cliché reads, there are only three things
that matter when it comes to the Olympic Games:
‘Legacy, Legacy, Legacy’. There were legacy
building opportunities that directly benefited the
team relationship and the final outcome of
the Water Cube. An ongoing challenge during the
 Lessons Learned from Managing the Design of the ‘Water Cube’ National Swimming Centre 187
contract negotiations was the inclusion of standard
clauses to protect intellectual property and
copyright over design ideas and documentation. At
the implementation planning workshop, project
managers presented the benefits of embracing a
very clear and simple policy that collaboration
between all design partners be total and completely
transparent. This was fundamental to establishing
and maintaining trust and respect at the start of the
project. In design terms, this involved accepting that
the concepts and analytical approaches that were
developed would become an important knowledge
legacy to help the design partner develop its
capabilities. In practical terms, it also meant that the
handovers to the partners were genuinely open.
The first legacy of the building is the ETFE façade
design, construction and performance. Team
members spent a week interviewing ETFE tenderers
and being challenged by a panel of Chinese
academics on various aspects of the ETFE façade
design and performance. As an extension to the
deliberate legacy building approach, Arup lobbied
that the ETFE contractors and the people of Beijing
would benefit by investing in local manufacturing and
processing facilities in Beijing, which the winning
tenderer accepted and implemented. This
guaranteed local training and employment in the
short term, but also led to a long-term local capability
to produce an innovative material likely to feature
heavily in Beijing’s ongoing development programme.
Another often-debated legacy is the legacy of a
totally shared ownership of the Water Cube concept.
The philosophy agreed on at the implementation
planning workshop, and one that resonated with all
the stakeholders during the project, is that the box
of bubbles concept for the Water Cube was
generated by equally integrating the requirements of
Arup’s engineering, PTW’s space planning and
Chinese cultural influences on architecture from
CCDI. It was not the result of any one single
dominant party. With such an iconic building, this
was and remains a powerful statement in terms of
the successful collaboration established between
the three project partners.
Finally, for the project management team and
other team members involved, the relationships they
have made and the satisfaction they have
achieved from being part of such a wonderful
project have provided a very genuine legacy. As well
as achieving critical acclaim, the project has
proved to be a successful investment in developing
a project management approach to establishing
and leading winning teams, managing relationships
with stakeholders across cultures, developing project
management processes required on major
multidisciplinary projects and technological
improvements in our immersive 3D modelling
capability. These have since been used to great
effect on many other Arup projects.
CONCLUSIONS
This article has discussed the major lessons learned
from managing the design of the ‘Water Cube’
Aquatic Swimming Centre for the Beijing 2008
Olympic Games. Many aspects of the Water Cube
project delivery were new and unique to the project
management team, which required innovative design
and management strategies and solutions. Virtually
every aspect has been a lesson learned of some
sort. It is important that these lessons learned be
captured and successfully taken forward for
development on future projects.
It is found that the design and management of a
complex international project like the Water Cube
must be innovative so as to meet client
expectations. These may include developing project
implementation strategic plans, developing
interface management strategies and designing for
safety; after all the most important strategy is to
recruit and lead clever people who may resist
being led and resist working to deadlines. It was
found that the complex and dynamic nature of the
Chinese market, its lack of regulatory transparency
and a relationship-based business culture were
among the factors that made China a challenging
project environment. As such, cultural
understanding and relationship (guanxi) building
were fundamental strategies in responding to these
challenges. It was also found that there is a need
for the design and management team’s
involvement in the construction stage to ensure the
conversion of design into reality and construction
quality as well as the fulfilment of professional and
personal satisfaction.
ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING AND DESIGN MANAGEMENT
188 P. X. W. ZOU AND R. LESLIE-CARTER
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