Trinity inspired Water Cube Shines at the Olympic Games

Posted on: 08 August 2008

The Water Cube – the groundbreaking development of the National Aquatic Centre in Beijing which is based on the geometric principle of soap bubbles developed by two Trinity College Dublin academics will be featuring prominently during the current  2008 Olympic Games.

In 1993, Denis Weaire and Robert Phelan of TCD’s School of Physics made a landmark discovery in foam physics, and created a new ideal structure of foam.  Their geometry of soap bubbles surpassed a previous principle devised by the  physicist, Lord Kelvin a century ago.

The Weaire-Phelan structure  inspired the design of  the Olympic Games’ iconic building, the  Water Cube  by structural engineer, Tristram Carfrae.  The walls of the new building consist of a framework of steel beams that represent the edges of the bubbles in the ideal foam and multi-walled plastic cushions cover its surface. The foam structure is most clearly seen in the multi-faceted ceiling of the restaurant, carved out of the foam structure by removing a large number of bubbles at floor level.

“It is a brilliant and original adaptation of the original shape”, says Weaire. The TCD academic, who has always maintained that the structure was artistically and architecturally appealing, travelled to China to see the building close up and was there when it was almost complete. “One of the great things is its transparency and partially reflecting surface, so that it can be chameleon-like as the sun strikes it,” says Weaire.

Weaire retired from TCD in October 2007 but is still highly active in research while Robert Phelan is a consultant with McKinsey.

Further research by the Foams group of Denis Weaire and Stefan Hutzler can be found in the books Physics of Foams and Pursuit of Perfect Packing.