Lesson Learnt From Water Cube Project

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

Patrick X. W. Zou & Rob Leslie-Carter

b

a

Faculty of the Built Environment , The University of New South Wales , Sydney, Australia

b

Arup Project Management , Sydney, Australia Published online: 06 Jun 2011.

W. Zou & Rob Leslie-Carter (2010) Lessons Learned from Managing To cite this article: Patrick X. W. the Design of the ‘Water Cube’ National Swimming Centre for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, Architectural Engineering and Design Management, 6:3, 175-188

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5 1 0 2 h c r a M 5 0 4 5 : 7 0 t a ] a y a l a M f o y t i s r e v i n U [ y b d e d a o l n w o D

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-Carter 2 1


2

Faculty of the Built Environment, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia 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 relationshipbased 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

B *Corresponding

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

author: Email: [email protected]

ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING AND DESIGN MANAGEMENT B 2010 doi:10.3763/aedm.2010.0114

ª2010 Earthscan ISSN: 1745-2007 (print),

B VOLUME 6 B

175–188

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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.

ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING AND DESIGN MANAGEMENT

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

Lessons Learned from Managing the Design of the ‘Water Cube’ National Swimming Centre

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

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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,

Water Cube project design and management team


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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


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.


l

l

l


l

l

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. 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. 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. Next technology – the use of high-tech materials to minimize energy consumption. Spiritually uplifting inside and outside – the square shape of the building reflects Chinese philosophies of a square representing earth and a circle representing heaven. 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.

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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


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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:

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.

Physical – an identified and documented point or

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.

l



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

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

volume strategy to resolve complex interfaces




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.

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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 fac ¸ ade 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

LEADING CLEVER PEOPLE

This section discusses project outcomes in relation to client expectations.

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

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.


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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 70,000m 2 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.


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



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.

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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

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

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


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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


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,



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

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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


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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 fac ¸ ade, 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


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 cliche´ 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



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 fac ¸ade 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 fac ¸ade 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

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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.


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Lesson Learnt From Water Cube Project

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