THE Universiade Center in Longgang District, the main venue for the 2011 Shenzhen Universiade, will shine like a huge crystal after it is built by 2011, according to its design unveiled Sunday.

Located in the heart of Longgang Sports New Town, the 520,500-square-meter, 4-billion-yuan (US$548-million) Universiade Center will mainly comprise a main stadium, a gymnasium and an indoor swimming pool, which will form a triangle.

Construction on the sports complex, another potential landmark of the city, will start this year and be ready before the Games open in August 2011.

"We will use glass as the material for the buildings' roofs and walls. Given lights in the night, they will put visitors in a dreamland," a spokesman for the city's public works bureau who was not identified said Sunday.

Located in northeastern Shenzhen and 15 kilometers from the heart of the city, the Universiade Center will not only host world-class sports events including athletics and indoor sports, but will be "a perfect stage for large concerts in the future," the spokesman said.

Covering 135,000 square meters, the main stadium will have 60,394 seats while the 74,000-square-meter gymnasium will be an ideal venue for indoor events, with 18,064 seats. The indoor swimming pool will be able to accommodate 3,112 people.

The three buildings will be linked to each other via glass passages. And there will be two other 150-meter high-rises in the complex.

Among the designers of the Universiade Center are Germany's GMP, which designed Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center, and 11 well-known domestic organizations including China Construction Design International, China Northeast Architectural Design & Research Institute, and Shenzhen General Institute of Architectural Design & Research.

Shenzhen plans to build more than 20 sports venues and upgrade about 30 old sports facilities in order to make the Games a success.

Construction on the sports center of Shenzhen University Town, a subvenue for the Games, began in May last year. Covering 172,000 square meters of land, the 257.1-million-yuan sports center will include a gymnasium, a stadium and a swimming pool.

Shenzhen won the bid to host the 2011 Universiade in January 2007, becoming China's second city to host the international sports event for university students, after Beijing.(Li Jing)