UK PAVILION DESIGN BY HEATHERWICK STUDIO
UK PAVILION DESIGN BY HEATHERWICK STUDIO
The UK Pavilion has been designed by Heatherwick Studio. Led by the internationally-acclaimed Thomas Heatherwick, his design team won the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) commission to create the Pavilion following a competition that attracted a shortlist of ambitious architectural proposals from other teams led by Zaha Hadid Architects, John McAslan + Partners, Marks Barfield Architects, Avery Associates, and DRAW Architects with dcmstudios.
Heatherwick Studio sought an approach that would engage meaningfully with Shanghai Expo’s theme, Better City, Better Life, and stand out from the anticipated trend for technology driven pavilions, filled with audio-visual content on screens, projections and speakers.
The design process evolved to produce two interlinked and experiential elements: an architecturally iconic Seed Cathedral, and a multi-layered landscape treatment of the 6,000m2 site.
The Seed Cathedral sits in the centre of the UK Pavilion’s site, 20 metres in height, formed from 60,000 slender transparent fibre optic rods, each 7.5 metres long and each encasing one or more seeds at its tip. During the day, they draw daylight inwards to illuminate the interior. At night, light sources inside each rod allow the whole structure to glow. As the wind moves past, the building and its optic “hairs” gently move to create a dynamic effect.
Inside the darkened inner sanctum of the Seed Cathedral, the tips of the fibre optic filaments form an apparently hovering galaxy of slim vitrines containing a vast array of embedded seeds. The seeds have been sourced from China’s Kunming Institute of Botany, a partner in Kew Royal Botanic Gardens’ Millennium Seed Bank Project. Visitors will pass through this tranquil, contemplative space, surrounded by the tens of thousands of points of light illuminating the seeds.
The UK Pavilion has been designed by Heatherwick Studio. Led by the internationally-acclaimed Thomas Heatherwick, his design team won the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) commission to create the Pavilion following a competition that attracted a shortlist of ambitious architectural proposals from other teams led by Zaha Hadid Architects, John McAslan + Partners, Marks Barfield Architects, Avery Associates, and DRAW Architects with dcmstudios.
Heatherwick Studio sought an approach that would engage meaningfully with Shanghai Expo’s theme, Better City, Better Life, and stand out from the anticipated trend for technology driven pavilions, filled with audio-visual content on screens, projections and speakers.
The design process evolved to produce two interlinked and experiential elements: an architecturally iconic Seed Cathedral, and a multi-layered landscape treatment of the 6,000m2 site.
The Seed Cathedral sits in the centre of the UK Pavilion’s site, 20 metres in height, formed from 60,000 slender transparent fibre optic rods, each 7.5 metres long and each encasing one or more seeds at its tip. During the day, they draw daylight inwards to illuminate the interior. At night, light sources inside each rod allow the whole structure to glow. As the wind moves past, the building and its optic “hairs” gently move to create a dynamic effect.
Inside the darkened inner sanctum of the Seed Cathedral, the tips of the fibre optic filaments form an apparently hovering galaxy of slim vitrines containing a vast array of embedded seeds. The seeds have been sourced from China’s Kunming Institute of Botany, a partner in Kew Royal Botanic Gardens’ Millennium Seed Bank Project. Visitors will pass through this tranquil, contemplative space, surrounded by the tens of thousands of points of light illuminating the seeds.
These fibre optic filaments are particularly responsive to external light conditions so that the unseen movement of clouds above the Seed Cathedral are experienced internally as a fluctuating luminosity. The studio’s intention is to create an atmosphere of reverence around this formidable collection of the world’s botanical resources; a moment of personal introspection in a powerful silent space.
Among the Expo’s sea of hard surfaces, the Seed Cathedral’s surrounding landscape is conceived to act as a continuation of the building’s texture. A special artificial grass surface has been uniquely developed to act as a welcoming and restful public space for Expo visitors. Beneath the Seed Cathedral and the landscaped surface area is a canopied and naturally ventilated entrance and exit sequence for the Seed Cathedral. This circulation zone, running along three edges of the site, contains a narrative of three innovative environmental installations designed by London-based design studio, Troika. They are: Green City, Open City, and Living City.
The creation of the extraordinary and complex Seed Cathedral structure and the landscape architecture was achieved through close collaboration between construction managers Mace, lead engineers Adams Kara Taylor, services engineers Atelier Ten and highly skilled Chinese engineers and contractors. In order to reduce unnecessary transportation, 75% of the materials for the UK Pavilion have been sourced from within a radius of 300km around Shanghai. It is also the British government’s intention that most of the materials of the UK Pavilion will be reused or recycled at the end of the Expo.
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UK PAVILION SHANGAI EXPO 2010
DESIGN BY HEATHERWICK STUDIO
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THOMAS HEATHERWICK
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Established by Thomas Heatherwick in 1994, Heatherwick Studio is
recognized for its work in architecture, urban infrastructure, sculpture,
design and strategic thinking. Today, a team of 90 architects, designers and
makers, work from a combined studio and workshop in Kings Cross, London.
At the heart of the studio’s work is a profound commitment to
finding innovative design solutions, with a dedication to artistic thinking and
the latent potential of materials and craftsmanship. This is achieved through a
working methodology of collaborative rational inquiry, undertaken in a spirit
of curiosity and experimentation.
In the eighteen years of its existence, Heatherwick Studio has
worked in many countries, with a wide range of commissioners and in a variety
of regulatory environments. Through this experience, the studio has acquired a
high level of expertise in the design and realisation of unusual projects, with
a particular focus on the large scale.
The studio’s work includes a number of nationally significant projects
for the UK, including the award-winning UK Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo
2010, the Olympic Cauldron for the London 2012 Olympic Games, and the New Bus
for London.
Thomas is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British
Architects; a Senior Research Fellow at the Victoria & Albert Museum; and
has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from the Royal College of Art, University
of Dundee, University of Brighton, Sheffield Hallam University and University
of Manchester.
He has won the Prince Philip Designers Prize, and, in 2004, was the
youngest practitioner to be appointed a Royal Designer for Industry. In 2010,
Thomas was awarded the RIBA’s Lubetkin Prize and the London Design Medal in
recognition of his outstanding contribution to design.
You may reach to see Heatherwick Studio's others project from my blog Boat River Loire – France, Bleigiessen and Extrusion to click below web pages.
http://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com/2013/01/boat-river-loire-france-design-by.html
http://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com.tr/2013/07/bleigiessen-design-by-heatherwick-studio.html
http://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com.tr/2013/05/heatherwick-studio-extrusions.html
http://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com.tr/2013/07/bleigiessen-design-by-heatherwick-studio.html
http://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com.tr/2013/05/heatherwick-studio-extrusions.html
