With 156 days to go until the 2012 British Olympic Trials, and 301 until the 2012 Summer Olympics officially commence, the $268 million Olympic Aquatics Centre in East London is complete. It took just over three years to construct the massive structure that will seat 17,500 during the Olympic Games and 2,500 afterwards. The pool is filled, the seats are bolted in, the parking lot is paved, and most of the construction equipment is gone.
Some fun facts about the facility:
- The 6-board diving tower used 462 tonnes of concrete to construct.
- The curved, architectural roof weighs 3,200 tons and is made out of good-old fashioned steel.
- The three pools in combination hold about 10.6 million gallons of water (10 million litres). That’s equivalent to roughly 8% of London’s household daily water usage.
- Excess pool water is used to fill the toilets of the complex.
- The pools are covered in 850,000 tiles.
Check out the pictures below taken from the London 2012 Webcam. The first is the site prior to the beginning of construction, and the latter is the finished product. Also check out this blog post from designboom.com, which has some great interior and exterior shots of the completed center.
Site of the new Olympic Aquatics Centre in London in August, 2008 Before Contsruction Began
Site of the new Olympic Aquatics Centre in London in September, 2011 after completion
From what I can see, it doesn’t look like those in the top rows will be able to see across the pool to the other spectators. Also, from the angle atop the dive tower, it looks like a pretty low ceiling once you’re on the platform. It’s got some big shoes to fill in trying to top the Water Cube though.
Gorgeous! My only question, based on the pictures shown, what the view looks like from the top row. That ceiling, given the angles, looks a bit low in the middle. I am sure there is no obstructed views, but it would be neat to see what the view looks like from the top row where the corners and middle dips; “the commoners seats”