Beijing Olympics Water Cube stadium shines with HB LEDs

I’d never heard of the Water Cube, the newly-built swimming stadium in Beijing that will house the swimming completion for this summer’s Olympics. So when high-brightness (HB) LED semiconductor and lighting manufacturer Cree sent over some whizzy new application photos, I had to do some research, and here, and here, to understand what I was looking at.
  

The Cube is a concrete and steel framework clad in a mesh of plastic bubble-like individual domes that, like soap bubbles, have a random, organic appearance. The bubble cladding is inflated over the framework, and being mostly transparent lets in plenty of natural lighting during the day. Here’s where the LEDs come in: Each bubble unit has a series of LEDs in it which can be used for general lighting, or colored (mood) lighting at night. Or, each bubble can become a giant pixel in an even more-giant display.

The fusion of architecture and LEDs is making for some truly innovative spaces.