Veretec were part of the competition winning multidisciplinary team alongside celebrated Designer Es Devlin to deliver the UK’s showcase pavilion at the 2020 World Expo in Dubai, which opened in October 2021.
Project Details
Awards
The 20 metre high, cone-shaped pavilion is made up of cross laminated timber blades. These are set out radially to create a slanting circular façade which incorporates LED’s to display poetry and messaging generated from words donated by the pavilion’s visitors.
The entry into the pavilion is through an illuminated maze featuring augmented reality-enriched exhibits of British advances in artificial intelligence and space exploration. Inside the pavilion is the Choral Space, which is filled with a collective choral soundtrack.
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The overall experience on entering this interior space replicates the resonating chamber of a wooden musical instrument and the scheme has built on the UK’s excellent track record of Expo pavilion successes.
The collaborative team also featured brand experience agency Avantgarde, structural engineer Atelier One, sustainability engineer Atelier Ten and Jackson Coles.
Click through to see write-ups from the Architects’ Journal and Dezeen.
“Algorithms are among us; they are an ever-growing part of our culture; their output is based on what they are trained on and who trains them. The pavilion is at once an expression of the ideal of a culturally diverse Britain that I grew up with, tempered with our growing awareness of the part algorithms play in shaping the future of our culture. ”
Es Devlin
Photography by Ry Galloway & Alin Constantin. Images courtesy of Es Devlin
