Adidas invited two NBA teams on a national tour of China. Liquid Impact was tasked with the design and build of the main court for the final game of the tourney. Building a basketball court may seem simple enough, but this project did not call for an ordinary court. This court was designed to attract international media attention and therefore needed a unique proposition. We conceived the idea of a court on Water and scouted the location of the court to be built on Taiping Lake, in the heart of Shanghai’s commercial and shopping district – Xintiandi, making it the first basketball game for the NBA to be played on water in it’s entire history.
Our Structural engineers faced two major challenges during construction. The first had to deal with the stability of the grandstand and its ability to support and distribute weight to ensure the safety of fans and a parking garage below. Our experienced team made detailed calculations and decided to adopt a system that included both vertical and angular supports. This method guaranteed a safe environment for fans and a sound foundation. The second challenge was to construct a court that would meet the stringent standards of NBA players. Under most conditions, this would be simple. However since the court was built on water, sophisticated solutions had to be considered. By adding a second layer of wood, of a specific thickness and mass, beneath the court’s surface Liquid Impact overcame the challenge and held a successful event.
