Thursday 22 April 2010
I thought you’d like to see this, it is designed by a friend of mine Thomas Heatherwick and his studio for the UK Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo. It looks like it going to be a really fantastic structure. Below is the description taken from their press release. I hope you enjoy looking at it, or even going to visit.
The UK Pavilion for the 2010 Shanghai Expo has been designed by Heatherwick studio, led by Thomas Heatherwick.
The studio developed the idea of the UK Pavilion exploring the relationship between nature and cities. From here came the idea of involving Kew Gardens Millenium seedbank whose mission is to collect the seeds of 25% of the world’s plant species by 2020.
The ‘Seed Cathedral’ sits in the centre of the UK Pavilion site , 20 metres in height and formed from 60,000 slender, transparent fibre optic rods, each 7.5m long and each encasing one or more seeds at its tip, swaying gently with any breeze.
The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office believe that the Seed Cathedral and the UK Pavilion will prove to be one of the Shanghai Expo’s most popular attractions, the Chinese public have already nicknamed it ‘Pu Gong Ying’ meaning ‘The Dandelion’.
The event will run from May to October 2010. Two hundred countries will take part with over 70 million visitors expected!
