The London Aquatics Centre by Zaha Hadid

Pritzker Prize winning architect Zaha Hadid, has designed the London Aquatics Centre, an indoor facility with two 50 metre swimming pools and a 25 metre diving pool, which will become one of the main venues of the London 2012 Summer Olympics.

The centre is located in the Olympic Park at Stratford in East London and its distinctive architecture and curved roof will be the first venue visitors see upon entering the Olympic Park.

The aquatics centre is one of the most controversial buildings on the Olympic site. It was originally costed at £73 million. The current bill is £303 million.

Despite the cost increases, the centre should be completed within 2011 and is a good bet for becoming one of London’s new iconic images.

As expected the impact of the building on the environment will be reduced by the use of renewable energy, sustainably sourced building materials, reuse of pool water to flush the toilets etc.

More Zaha Hadid in Future Architecture:

Regium Waterfront Museum, Italy

Antwerp Port House

Zaha Hadid designs plastic shoes

The award-winning architect collaborates with shoe company to create futuristic shoes In the era of the high-rise heel, it’s no surprise that an architect has been called upon to design women’s shoes. Architect Zaha Hadid, known for her abilities to mould metal and glass into spectacular buildings, has joined forces with Brazilian shoemakers Melissa to create a new women’s shoe.

The £200 limited edition shoe takes on features of one of Hadid’s grand-scale designs with cut out holes for the toes and diagonally sloping straps. "I have 30 years of research on different areas of architecture and design and this was a very challenging project," said Hadid, "not only in design but on the technical side.
source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk"

Jean Nouvel wins the 2008 Pritzker

Jean Nouvel, the bold French architect known for such wildly diverse projects as the muscular Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and the exotically louvered Institute of the Arab World in Paris, has received architecture's top honor, the Pritzker Prize.
Nouvel, 62, is the second French citizen to take the prize, awarded annually to a living architect by a jury chosen by the Hyatt Foundation.

"For over 30 years Jean Nouvel has pushed architecture's discourse and praxis to new limits," the Pritzker jury said in its citation. "His inquisitive and agile mind propels him to take risks in each of his projects, which, regardless of varying degrees of success, have greatly expanded the vocabulary of contemporary architecture."

Jean Nouvel's design of the Louvre Museum is almost iconic-ally poetic: