The British Airways London Eye, also known as the Millennium Wheel, was completed in 1999 and opened to the public in March 2000, and was the largest observation wheel in the world until the opening of The Star of Nanchang in May 2006 (the record will in turn be broken by the Singapore Flyer in early 2008 when it becomes operational). The London Eye stands 135 metres (443 feet) high on the western end of Jubilee Gardens, on the South Bank of the River Thames in Lambeth, London, England, between Westminster and Hungerford Bridges (Coordinates: 51°30'12'N, 00°07'11'W). The wheel is adjacent to London's County Hall, and stands opposite the offices of the Ministry of Defence. Designed by architects David Marks, Julia Barfield, Malcolm Cook, Mark Sparrowhawk, Steven Chilton and Nic Bailey, the wheel carries 32 sealed and air-conditioned passenger capsules attached to its external circumference. It rotates at 0.26 metres (0.85 feet) per second (about 0.9 km/h or 0.5 mph) so that one revolution takes about 30 minutes. The wheel does not usually stop to take on passengers: the rotation rate is so slow that they can easily walk on and off the moving capsules at ground level. It is, however, stopped to allow disabled or elderly passengers time to embark and disembark safely.