My Sister Got A Job From Her 1st Interview!

I felt so happy and relieved yesterday when i learnt from margaret that my sister, alice was being offered her first job through her first interview. Alice, i'm so glad you've found your dream job and welcome to the working world. Nothing is different in working when compared to having your assignments done in Uni, apart from things are now starting to be real and involves real money! But do not freak out sis, once you've got the hang of it, you'll realise it's no big deal. Well done to you again!

Changing the subject slightly, i would like to open up a discussion about the Beijing's Olympic Bird Nest Stadium. I was watching Megastructures tv programme on channel 5 the other day and they did a documentary about the bird nest's construction. Very interesting programme indeed. For every chinese who was involved in the design and construction of the stadium, you guys have done very well. The whole nation is proud of your achievement. Thousands of workers were involved from the start to the end.

Fig 1: The Bird's Nest Stadium

The structure looks complicated and difficult to contruct from first glance, but when the programme tailored out the concept behind the structures, it was pretty clear to how it works (at least to me anyway). It's a "box within a box" type of structure. The inside arena is constructed as concrete bowl. Yea, concrete bowl to support the seating arena. The bowl is splitted into 6 pieces through movement joints and they acted as an independent structure, where, in the event of an earthquake and should the stadium are to collapse (fingers cross), it'll crack through the joints and collapse at the designated area (i.e. piece by piece).

Fig 2: The Outer Box (look at the size of the beast!)

The outer box as you can see, comprises strings of huge rectangular hollow sections, wrapping around the stadium in a complete mad angles. The beams are huge. super huge! and i've never seen anything this big before. They are prefabricated sections and are designed to accomodate seismic movements, therefore, in the event of an earthquake, it'll be flexible enough to not collapse(fingerscross!). It's an extremely high yield stress steel grade and high compressive stress concrete grade(RC80 if i'm not mistaken) to construct the stadium. You should seen the moment they cast the concrete onto the bowl. It just looks so dry . . .a lot of cement content!

Fig 3: Seating arena

Fig 4: Outer Box in construction

I think i would like to visit the stadium sometime to see the amazing structure with my own eyes. It's just unbelievable. To me, the bird's nest is the most complicated stadium to be constructed in our hystory (unless there is/are more stadiums which i'm not aware of?) which was on time and to budget. This is just so unique. Ppl tend to think about high rise for amazing buildings but nope. . .the architect working for the bird's nest stadium had proved that you don't have to be high to be famous . . a little bit of imaginations and lateral thinking will equally make you as famous as the burj dubai tower!

P.S. Pictures were stolen from google image. so if any of you can't get enough of it, google it. you'll find lots in there!

Ta~~~