An ever-changing poem, created by the millions of visitors to Expo 2020 Dubai, will beam out from the UK pavilion, transcending boundaries and inviting people of all walks of life to take part. Each illuminated word, that can be entered by a visitor, will sheath the timber-lined exterior of an impressive pavilion that will take the shape of a conch shell.
Created by UK designer Es Devlin, the UK’s Expo 2020 pavilion fuses poetry, geometry, visual effects with small LED screens and solar panels that will shade a labyrinth within. The UK Expo 2020 pavilion design was revealed on Thursday. A 20-metre high facade will stretch across 52m and will fan out over an exhibition area beneath the splintered cone.
Describing the concept as the merging of the ancient and futuristic, Ms Devlin said the structure resembled a conch shell to call people to action. “We will use a sustainable material called cross laminated timber that has properties that are warm and will juxtapose this with solar panels to shade the walkways,” she said.
“The idea draws directly on one of [physicist] Stephen Hawking’s final projects, ‘Breakthrough Message’, a global competition that Hawking and his colleagues conceived in 2015 inviting people worldwide to consider what message we would communicate to express ourselves as a planet, should we one day encounter other advanced civilisations in Space.”
The pavilion is to be produced by Avantgarde, an agency with offices in London and Dubai. Najeeb Al Ali, executive director of Dubai Expo 2020 Bureau, said the pavilion was intriguing.
