Chas Pope
'Blue sky bird's nest'
The Beijing National Stadium, otherwise known as the “Bird’s Nest” is on target to be completed well before the Olympic Games in August 2008. As engineers, Arup had to make structural sense out of the “random” concept developed by the Swiss architecture firm Herzog and De Meuron. The result is a regular series of 24 interwoven trusses spanning across the stadium, which are disguised by secondary elements arranged in a chaotic manner to create the desired effect. It has already become a popular Beijing icon.
Graduated: 1998.
Biog: Since graduating from Cambridge University nine years ago. I have been working as a structural engineer with Arup. I have concentrated on multidisciplinary building engineering design, spending five years in London before moving to the Beijing office in 2003. My work in China has concentrated on projects related to the 2008 Olympic Games, in particular the design of the gravity-defying CCTV Headquarters Building which is now taking shape in the city. I am currently working on other projects in Beijing and the East Asia region.
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