Games enter finishing straight

Preparations for the Olympics are being swept up in Beijing's race to modernise, writes Roeland van den Bergh.

The first big snowfall of the winter is a happy day for Beijing's 18 million inhabitants - it kills the flu bug that fills hospitals with patients at this time of year.

But outside, construction continues in overdrive in the bitter cold as the Chinese capital prepares for its big day on the international stage when the Olympic Games open in just eight months.

To the north of the city, much of the vast complex of Olympic venues, known as the Olympic Green, is a sleet-soaked building site.

Central to the 13-venue complex is the main stadium, dubbed the "Bird's Nest" because of the bowl's complex exterior of interwoven steel girders. Workers are installing the 91,000 seats and the track and field have yet to be laid.

To Western eyes, the amount of work needed to transform the rubble surrounding the arena into sloping latticed slate walkways divided by sunken gardens, stone plazas, bamboo groves and mineral hillscapes by the scheduled March completion date seems hopelessly optimistic.

However, Beijing Municipal Planning Commission chief Wang Wie is adamant that it will be done and Beijing will be ready come the start of the opening ceremony at 8pm on the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year of the century. The number 8 is considered lucky by the Chinese.

A specific bureau has been charged with all the detailed planning. "You don't need to worry about the finishing time," Mr Wang says. "If it is set to be finished some time, it will be done."

And so far, the countdown programme set by the bureau has been strictly adhered to - thanks in no small part to the availability of mass cheap labour and the lack of a Resource Management Act.

"We have many competition venues finished according to the exact schedule," Mr Wang says.

Among them is the massive fan-shaped National Indoor Stadium, which will host the gymnastics. It was tested in competition in November. Apart from a glass light tower exploding, it passed with flying colours.

The 37 venues (six are outside Beijing) cover 1.08 million square metres of land and will provide total seating for 540,000 spectators. In addition, there are 45 training venues and five support venues including the athletes' village and a hi-tech media centre.

Twelve of the venues are new, the rest are existing facilities, some upgraded from the 1990 Asian Games.

Mr Wang says the Olympic venues and infrastructure are based on three design principles. The "Green Olympics" focuses on the sustainable development of Beijing and improvement of its ecological systems - including extensive parklands.

The "People's Olympics" aims to protect and promote the culture and tradition of the historic city.

And the "Hi-tech Olympics" requires the use of state-of-the-art environmentally friendly materials and construction techniques and technologies.

Perhaps the National Aquatics Centre, dubbed the "Water Cube", pushes the latter to its extreme.

At first glance the cube appears little more than a box, though with an interesting bubble honeycomb exterior and semi-translucent grey-blue finish.

But its construction, like many of the Olympic Green venues, is an engineering marvel that uses large inflatable bags for walls, designed to maximise the use of natural light and insulation.

Some venues have lost some of their more elaborate design features to stay within budget.

Late design changes include the replacement of a cycle helmet-inspired roof for the velodrome in favour of a spoked-wheel concept.

But the billions of dollars still being spent does have a surprising critic. Xu Guobin, professor of civil engineering at Beijing Jiaotong University, says too much money is being spent on the venues, at the expense of education.

Professor Xu is the lead engineering consultant for the Bird's Nest, which uses one of his 30 patents for steel construction.

"For China, the most important thing as a developing country is improving education," he says.

The Bird's Nest is costing up to four billion yuan (about NZ$800million), and the Water Cube and National Indoor Stadium about one billion yuan each.

Chinese people are proud of the buildings, but there is sadness that the architectural design is Swiss, after an international design competition, Professor Xu says.

Unless China invests in training more architects and designers, the country will continue to rely on foreign help. The Olympic projects will allow China to learn from international experience, he says.

Though the sporting facilities are either complete or in their final stages, some large infrastructure projects have only just begun, including three railway lines.

They will from part of a network of 19 lines, to be built by 2015, covering a total of 570 kilometres, extending to 28 lines and 1130km by 2050.

A new terminal at the city's international airport stands ready to process the first planeload of passengers next month. At nearly one million square metres, terminal 3 is the biggest in the world.

Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympic Games in 2001 and the development forms part of a rolling 10-year master plan for the development of Beijing.

Beijing is built around two central axis roads that cross at Tiananmen Square, the gateway to the ancient Forbidden City. Development has been phenomenal. In the past 20 years a network of three huge ring roads has been added, taking the total to five, including the moat around the Forbidden City. But the system fails to cope with the 4.5 million cars, increasing by 1000 a day.

The Olympics have boosted economic growth and development of the city, including basic infrastructure such as better water, heat and gas supplies, Mr Wang says. They will also showcase Beijing's engineering and management abilities to the world.

Mr Wang is confident that Beijing will not be saddled with venues that are economically unsustainable after the Olympic Games.

The Water Cube, for example, will have a large chunk of its 17,000 seating capacity removed to make way for a hydro slide to boost revenue.

Hockey and archery will take place at temporary facilities inside a new park, which will be turned over to public use along with a permanent tennis centre.

Apartments that will house the 10,708 athletes have already been sold to wealthy buyers.

Meanwhile, cranes reach for the sky like weeds as developers race to finish their glass skyscrapers.

The snow and subsequent wind provided a brief period of almost clear skies, but during the oppressive summer heat, a thick blanket of smog and dust settles over the city.

The International Olympic Committee has voiced its concerns about the city's air pollution and warned that some endurance events might be rescheduled if the air is too dirty.

To help improve the air quality, officials are planning a construction ban as part of a raft of contingency measures, including closing down coal-fired industry.

The most publicised option is to severely restrict the use of cars.

- Roeland van den Bergh travelled to Beijing courtesy of Air New Zealand.

- © Fairfax NZ News