Today I took an early lunch, and met up with Jenn and a friend to go for a tour of the convention centre. They give tours at times when there are not too many conventions or meetings going on. We'd been to see it when it first opened in 2009, before the Olympics, but it was great to have a guide to tell us more about it.
This globe hangs in the entrance - it's HUGE!
The interior walls are all wood, made to look like stacks of lumber, to great effect!
And the exterior is all glass, to show the great views!
A view of the sculpture that I hadn't seen before!
There were over a million blocks of wood (in random thicknesses up to 1") glued to plywood panels, and attached to the walls. They started out doing it by hand, but after 3 hours for one panel, they realized they needed something faster, so they developed a process where a robot grabbed a few blocks, applied the glue, and put them in place. MUCH faster!
Thank goodness, because there's 2 acres of that kind of wood panelling throughout the building.
Looking down to the lowest floor, there's a huge glass tile mosaic.
It was good to see the place again, with a guide to give us the details!
1 comment:
Very cool.
Sheri-Lee
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