SPANISH PAVILION FOR SHANGHAI EXPO 2010

Architects :Miralles Tagliabue (EMBT)

By : Agresh Shrivastava 02 Gourav Goyal 20 Kishlay kishore 27

Architect : Benedetta Tagliabue

Project Director : Makoto Fukuda Salvador Gilabert

Project Director on site : Igor Peraza, Arch

Client : SSIE (State Society for International Exhibitions)

Engineers : Structural engineers Julio Martinez Calzón, MC2 Structures Survey

Engineering: Mechanical engineers

Tongji– The Architectural Design and Research Institute

• Location : Shanghai ,China• Cost : 1.8 million euros (US$2.6 million) • The space spanning 7,500 square meters was

categorized under the theme called “Habitable Constructions.”

• miralles tagliabue EMBT have been awarded the prize for the top future project at The world architecture festival.

• The Spanish Pavilion led by the design team Catalan EMBT Miralles-Tagliabue was the biggest pavilions during World Expo 2010.

About the project

DESIGN CONCEPT

THE DESIGN OF THE PAVILION

The Spanish Pavilion for the 2010 World Expo of Shanghai seeks to reflect upon the Spanish climate, as well as to recover the extraordinary craft of wickerwork in order to bring it back to life and to reinvent it as a new construction technique.

DESIGN CONCEPT

‘An expo is about national identity and about knowing and mixing…

So we would like some of the pavilion made in spain and some in china or asia.

Wicker technology is the same across the world'.

WORDS FROM THE ARCHITECT

FREE FLOW PATH

• Tagliabue likes the combination of the easy to build, solid and highly controlled steel structure and the hugely flexible wicker panels which will allow the complex geometry of the drawings to be realised.

• Essentially the plan is for panels of woven willow stems to be hung as a skin from the bones of steel supports.

STRUCTURE DETAILS …

• Have a steel structure and a wicker cover.

• The wicker will be covered by a special material that is water-proof.

• It will also keep the pavilion at a comfortable temperature

• The pavilion is conceived as a series of baskets, some open at the top and some enclosed, creating a dappled light in courtyards, circulation and multipurpose spaces.

• EMBT’s design is based on different chinese characters.

• It will be impossible to read but for the subliminal text will talk about 'maximum systems' such as the moon, sun and sky.

• The colours of the wicker –from the red brownto white – will be achieved by the treatments it would naturally go though: stripping, maintaining the skin, or treating it to make it more durable.

USE OF SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS

• The design was inspired by wicker baskets, a handicraft deeply rooted in both Spain and China.

• The frontage of the pavilion will be covered by wicker while the rest of the building will be made from sustainable materials like bamboo and semi-transparent paper laid out on an intricate panel system.

• “Our objective is to let visitors know that Spain is a country where tradition and modernity coexist in all senses.”

• Lead architect Benedetta Tagliabue tried to avoid the traditional box concept for pavilions by leaving large patios that will enable a better and free-flowing movement of the visitors.

• inside the pavilion, the exhibition will cover three main content units: “From nature to city,”“From our parents’ city to our current one,” and “From the current city to the future one.”

MIXED USE BUILDING

• On the other hand, the pavilion will have its east wing divided into three floors where the visitor will be able to access several public services such as a tapas bar that can hold up to 300 people and where cuisine based on the best Spanish products will be offered.

• There will also be a shop, an auditorium with a 200 people capacity and a business center which to take advantage of the Expo functioning as a meeting place to increase and boost the Spanish business presence in China.

Built in a parcel of 7,500m2, the Spanish Pavilion has a usable area of 8,500m2.

Aside from the spaces destined to hold the main exhibits, the pavilion counts with•Official receptions•An auditorium with 150 seats•A conference room (with simultaneous translation)•A press room (with a production set)•A support area for Spanish companies endowed with meeting rooms and work desks

This building seeks to play with the incredible potential of wickerwork.

And introduce wicker as a sustainable and viable material concept that remains present throughout the building.

Why wicker?

Basketry techniques a global tradition shared by cultures of all times.They occur in similar ways in East and West.

In this sense, the material choice for the pavilion attempts to bridge between two cultures, the Spanish (visiting) and the Chinese (the host).

The free form of the structure characterized by complex curvatures that made necessary the development of an independent structural system to support the form.

project demanded a new collaboration model between the architect and the engineer.

THE WICKERIn contrast to the high-tech construction of the tubular steel structure, the wicker panels that clad the facade use simple and ancient manufacturing techniques

each panel is made of woven wicker fibers that wrap around a slightly distorted metal frame to give the panel a warping effect

Built in small shops by local wicker craftsmen

CONSTRUCTION METHODOLOGY

The different densities of wicker fibers let through to the interior of the pavilion changing light and shade

Adding new variations to ancient traditional techniques and applying them to a twenty-first century building

The strong light of the exterior is sieved through by superimposed steel and wicker meshes.

THE FAÇADEThe facade of the building integrates a completely new element: in a mosaic like fashion, a series of Chinese characters can be appreciated superimposed with the facade

THE FAÇADE

To celebrate the 2010 chinese year of the tiger, the spanish pavalion   was dressed in the 'skin‘ of the tiger.

The steel frame is covered, in more than 8,000 wicker panels.

Three different colored panels, brown, beige, and black, creates the impression of a tiger.

Computer software was essential in the development of the Spanish Pavilion.The form was first devised as geometric NURBS (non-uniform

rational B-splines) surfaces in Rhino software, then surfaces were cut by vertical and horizontal planes which resulted in curves that defined the axis of the corresponding structural tubes.

Future Fabrics

The Spanish Pavilion it clearly illustrates the possibilities to build complex structural systems. The other area that must be acknowledged in the use of textiles in architecture is the recent developments in textile technology.

“I am not attracted to straight angles or to the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. I am attracted

to free-flowing, sensual curves. The curves that I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinousness of its rivers, in

the waves of the ocean, and on the body of the beloved woman. Curves make up the entire Universe, the curved

Universe of Einstein.”