This article was taken from the April 2011 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Zaha Hadid's Guangzhou opera house uses rippled surfaces for ideal acoustics.
The smooth, angular exterior of China's newest opera house, designed by Zaha Hadid and situated beside the Pearl River in Guangzhou, suggests two rocks eroded by flowing water. Inside one is a 400-capacity multipurpose performance space. The other houses a theatre that seats 1,800. Spread over 70,000m2, the $200 million building is one of the largest asymmetrical structures in the world and possibly one of the most complex. It is made up of 12,000 tonnes of precision-cut steel shapes, joined together using bespoke steel joints. Engineers usually use GPS to position components such as these, but its 5cm tolerance proved too inaccurate, so lasers were used instead. "The flowing surfaces of the balconies and the walls prevent sound bouncing around the interior, overlapping and creating so-called 'early reflections'," Hadid explains. Constellations of white LEDs beneath the concrete balconies enhance the visual spectacle of the building too.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
