National Aquatics Center

The National Aquatics Center on Beijing's Olympic Green, better known worldwide as the Water Cube, hosted the swimming, diving and synchronised swimming events of the 2008 Summer Games. Designed by an Australian-Chinese team led by PTW Architects, the building is clad in an inflated ETFE foil whose roughly 4,000 pillows mimic the geometric arrangement of soap bubbles, an echo of the Weaire-Phelan structure. Twenty-five world records fell here during the Games, more than at any previous swimming venue, and Michael Phelps collected most of his eight gold medals in this pool. For the 2022 Winter Olympics the pools were covered over and converted into two curling sheets, with the venue temporarily renamed the Ice Cube. It now contains a public wave pool, a family water park with slides and a swim school. Beijing Metro line 8 to Olympic Sports Center station drops you at the door.