British Pavillion at Shanghai Expo 2010
on 21/3/10
The Trend Boutique is impressed with the British addition to the Shanghai Expo 2010, which seems to harness & represent the high levels of creativity & innovation present in the UK, whilst taking a supremely unique environmental message into the heart of the design.
Titled 'Better City, Better Life' the UK pavillion has been created by the talented group of Thomas Heatherwick, a company known for its strategic & forward thinking approach to architecture, sculpture, urban infrastructure, and product & exhibition design.
UK Pavillion Design for the Shanghai Expo 2010 by Thomas Heatherwick
Shanghai Expo, like all other major expos that have taken place since 1851, is an amazing opportunity for countries around the world to showcase their culture, design & innovation to some 70 million+ visitors that attend these impressive events. They also provide a chance for architects & designers to have a free reign with their creativity, expressing some fantastical ideas, and as a result provide a rich source of inpiration for the rest of us.
UK Pavillion Design for the Shanghai Expo 2010 by Thomas Heatherwick - Day View
The centrepiece of the UK’s design is the extraordinary pavilion building itself, six stories high and formed from some 60,000 slender transparent rods, which extend from the structure and 'quiver' in the breeze. By day, each of the 7.5m long rods act like fibre optic filaments drawing in daylight to illuminate the interior creating a beautiful space for visitors to interact with. By night, the light sources within the interior end of each rod will allow the whole structure to glow.
UK Pavillion Design for the Shanghai Expo 2010 by Thomas Heatherwick - Night View
The pavilion itself will sit on a landscape looking like 'paper that once wrapped the building' providing a great open space for public events and shelter for visitors making their way into the pavilion structure.
Whilst inside the pavilion building, it aims to provide a unique visual representation of the UK’s leading role in conservation worldwide, seen with the creation of an 'alternative World Bank' where the 'potential of life' is what is safeguarded.
UK Pavillion Design for the Shanghai Expo 2010 by Thomas Heatherwick - Interior View
Drawing upon the Kew Millennium Seed Bank Project (the largest collection of wild plant seeds in the world) the interior has tens of thousands of seeds encased within transparent rods, and visitors will be able to view examples of seeds of plant species that contribute to national and global biodiversity conservation programmes. The seeds themselves, however, have been sourced from the Germplasm Bank of Wild Species, Kunming Institute of Botany, The Chinese Academy of Sciences in China, who are a partner in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank Project.
UK Pavillion Design for the Shanghai Expo 2010 by Thomas Heatherwick - Close-up of Transparent Rods
The Trend Boutique love the UK Pavillion and its optimistic air and how it has placed nature at the centre of the design in such a simplistic, but awe-inspiring way. All of which should create a great atmosphere to promote the British culture and creativity, especially with the array of the events & activities planned during the Expo.
