The design of Beijing's new Olympic swimming center - with its foam bubble facade and cube shape - made a mighty splash around the world when it was first revealed in 2003.

Somehow, the creators managed to fit a square peg in a round hole. This inspired piece of architecture, which will be completed in the middle of this year, was the result of an international collaboration of architects and engineers from China and Australia.

However, the key to their success was not only designing an incredible structure, but also understanding the secrets of Chinese design philosophy: They needed to know the yin and yang of Beijing.

The swimming center is strategically positioned adjacent to the equally impressive National Stadium, which also created headlines with its unique "bird's nest" shape.

Together, the two structures form the heart and soul of the 2008 Games layout and reflect the Chinese philosophy of harmonious balance.

The steel stadium is circular, and colored with a red hue. The foam-covered swimming center is square shaped and blue. Fire and water, masculine and feminine, yin and yang. In fact, an aerial photograph of the site reveals the two key Olympic Games venues forming a giant yin and yang symbol.

Beijing Olympic organizers wanted the venues to showcase cutting-edge innovation of modern China while also reflecting the old spirit of the Middle Kingdom. To recapture this spirit, the two sporting centers are integrated into the axis of the capital, one of the world's most carefully planned cities.

The north-south axis line, which runs through Tian'anmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Drum and Bell towers, perfectly dissects the two modern Olympic landmarks. The mix of deep-rooted Chinese culture and free-flowing modern ideas was how the swimming center was born.

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However, the Sydney-based architects needed a Chinese perspective, so they joined forces with China State Construction Engineering Corporatation, CSCEC Shenzhen Design Institute and Arup engineers, who were also based in Sydney.

Three Chinese architects joined the Sydney designers and engineers to work their magic in the pool.

John Pauline, practice director at PTW, said the swimming center represented a brilliant collaboration.

"You have Australian ideas, you have Chinese ideas, it is all reflected in the building," he said. "The Olympic spirit is all about collaboration and harmony and it was a combination of all these individuals and influences that produced the center."

Although the multi-cultural team was talented, the architects knew they were up against the world's best designers.

Pauline said the team's early schemes involved wave forms until Arup engineers suggested using a bubble-like material used on a huge botanical gardens in England. This massive greenhouse was aptly named the Eden Centre, because from this building's concept, the Beijing bubble pool was created.

The EFTC material was light-weight, could span great heights, and most importantly, was inert, which meant it did not react to chemicals and become degraded or corroded.

It also had environmental advantages. The swimming complex is covered by two skins of bubbles and in between these layers is a 4m gap. During winter, heat is trapped inside the building; however in summer, hot air can escape. During August, when the Games is to be held, the summer heat will be trapped in the cavity and released through vents in the roof. EFTC will also reduce energy costs by 30 per cent.

The next step was designing a shape and after thinking outside the square, the team realized the answer lied inside the square itself. It was the Chinese architects who suggested the rectangular shape because they knew the powerful symbolism of rectangles and squares.

Wang Min, one of the Chinese architects, explained that the city of Beijing grew from its original square shape of design. Also, the square or rectangular shape leaves sufficient space for the use after the Games.

"You think about the Forbidden City, or about any of the old houses in Beijing, and they are almost designed in these beautiful, rectangular forms," Pauline said.

Now it was a matter of fitting a round peg of a bubble into a square hole. Pauline compared EFTC to soap bubbles in a bath.

"Imagine a bubble bath, and running a knife through the bubble and cutting those bubbles into a square. That is literally the structure of the building," he said.

"It is a very rigid mathematical formula and it is incredibly repetitive. When you look at this building, it looks random, and incredibly wild but it's based on very strict mathematical geometry and is a very efficient spanning structure."

The big bang moment arrived when the random pattern of foam was made into a computerized 3D cube model. "The entire team knew, 'wow, we are on to something'," Pauline said.

"We deliberately designed a square object, we had lightweight steel and a blue color palette.

"The Olympic master plan is based on the strong axis and our design represents the axis. We have the yin and yang contrast between these buildings flipping between the two. It is an incredibly strong axis."

What impressed Pauline the most was how well the team worked together. "In architecture there are two ways to do it. One way is to have a lead architect who can dictate everything. You rely on that individual style and if you have really strong character with great design skills, that will get you over the line," he said.

"The other way is to have a fully integrated process. However 99 times out of 100, when you work with too many cooks in the kitchen you get mediocrity because of compromise.

"This is one of the examples where you have a lot of people working on it and have lots of opinions and still end up with a great result."

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