USA Pavilion at Shanghai Expo 2010 will be green inside and out

by Judith Rubin

Often, the first experience of designing, developing or operating a world expo pavilion opens a path to building an international reputation and a career for oneself. Not so for the principal members of the team creating the USA Pavilion (USAP) for Shanghai Expo 2010 (May 1-Oct 31). They're old hands, and they have expos in their blood. They find the inherent rewards of the project and of working together make it worth the pressure, the long hours and the short pay.

For architect Clive Grout (Right) of Vancouver-based Clive Grout Architects, designing expo pavilions is a labor of love, and a familiar one. He cut his expo teeth working on multiple pavilions at Vancouver Expo 86 (in fact, the last time a world's fair was hosted by a North American city). On three of those pavilions, Bob Rogers, whose company BRC Imagination Arts (Burbank) is designing the exhibits for the USAP, was designer.

Rogers' career was pretty well launched as a result of the work he did in Vancouver, which included the “Spirit Lodge” show at the General Motors Pavilion, and the “Rainbow Wars” film (nominated for an Academy Award) for the British Columbia Pavilion. His company has since designed and produced a long string of expo pavilions over the decades, as well as numerous well-known attractions for museums and theme parks, including the Abraham Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Illinois and Shuttle Launch Experience at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Grout went on to head the firm Architectura (which he sold a few years ago to form his smaller, present business) and one of his influential design triumphs with that company was a remarkable expansion of Vancouver International Airport, which, in its configuration, choice of materials and selection of public art, celebrated and evoked the beauty, unique terrain and cultural identity of the region much like a good world's fair pavilion.

“I started in this expo route back at Expo 86 and I found it incredibly satisfying,” says Grout. “Now, many years later comes a chance to work with Bob again on what's going to be a spectacular expo. It's more than just a job. It's a welcome opportunity and a high-profile challenge. I am working on something first-class with people I consider to be my friends, and whom I really respect. I just love being part of these projects and I really appreciate Nick Winslow's (left) confidence in hiring us to do this for him.”

Winslow, who leads the USAP team with attorney Ellen Eliasoph, is a seasoned consultant whose experience includes seven years with Warner Bros. Recreation Enterprises and 11 years with Harrison Price Company (now retired, Price was a leading economic analyst whose credits include feasibility studies for many world expos). “We started this with Nick when he was trying to put the USAP together, knowing it was an uphill battle,” says Grout.

Winslow's team raced against time and a recession to raise enough of the pavilion's $61 million budget to enable the project to reach a major milestone a little over a week ago: the official groundbreaking in Shanghai. But this is the era of warp-speed projects and all are confident of a good outcome. “We have been working on the project to keep it alive while waiting for this groundbreaking,” notes Grout. “Now that it is in construction, our main focus is on working closely with the Chinese design firm responsible for the  technical drawings, to ensure that the design intent is fully realized. It is a pleasure working with them and they are really quite keen to do it.” Grout is also now working very closely with BRC's designers to integrate their requirements for the pavilion guest experience into the show spaces Grout and his associates have roughed out.

Another critical task is integrating sponsors' products or otherwise showcasing sponsor companies within the building (in terms of materials and technologies used) and its exhibits. World's fairs are a setting for building international relationships of all kinds, including business, and the VIP hosting center in the USAP (separate from the public areas) will see heavy use. “During the fair, these sponsors will be able to use the VIP space to meet, greet and celebrate,” says Grout. “We want to be able to showcase as many key sponsors as we can, and are putting a lot of design development work into it. All the sponsors are very energetic to be a part of this. Not all of them produce things incorporated in buildings, but they all want to put forward their vision for the future. Obviously, with this fast track construction schedule, it's a point of urgency for any sponsors who are still on the fence.” 

The theme of Shanghai Expo 2010 is “Better Cities, Better Life.” Grout's pavilion design, BRC's  guest experience and the sponsor showcase will all develop that theme to vision and celebrate the sustainable cities of the future, and endeavor to realize those things in practice now, within the context of the expo. “We're doing a lot of things to be sustainable as best we can in a high-energy show facility that is up for six months.”

The Design

The building's entrance and initial queuing area will be a tree-filled space Grout calls an “urban courtyard.” “It is the kind of space we hope we will find increasingly in cities: building entrances that bring the landscape in and create a treed canopy,” he explains. “These are the courtyards and pocket parks that can make such a difference in our cities, and can be developed as you design a building.” The trees will be accompanied by a waterfall, generated by a rainwater-fed pool. “We want to inspire people to reflect on how important it is to preserve the water that is the source of life, and to provide both physical and psychological cooling.”

Urban agriculture – a fruit and vegetable garden on the roof – is another significant feature of the building. Some of the produce will be used for catering the VIP lounge. “Increasingly, cities in the future will use roof spaces this way,” says Grout. “We feel that it produces a very strong statement.” This low-tech aspect of greenbuilding will set the USAP building a little apart from buildings that depend more on technical and mechanical features such as photovoltaics and wind generation. “We're doing those as well,” says Grout, “but for me the signature statement for this pavilion is the entrance through a very intense green urban courtyard and an urban agriculture rooftop.”

The landscaping will reflect the wide variety of climate and terrain in the US. “On one side of the building we've created basically a rainwater-fed wetland, which will be irrigated by runoff from the roof,” says Grout. There will also be areas to represent grasslands, conifer forests, mountainous areas and shorelines. “This is part of how we think we'll be building cities in the future,” says Grout. “In addition to how we design the buildings themselves, we will also design the space between buildings to be kept in a sustainable manner. I think it will be a unique, distinctive message for the fair that in our cities will become standard practice. It may be surprising we're taking that approach from a nation that is so high tech. You can't have sustainability without nature and in cities we can and must have nature as part of our habitats.”

The building itself, which is situated in a fairly unobstructed area near the expo's Western gate, is designed with four main show areas, through which will be pulsed some 2,500 visitors per hour, with a capacity of 500 people per show.

The two wings of the building symbolize the wings of an eagle. Materials and methods were chosen to maximize recyclability, as the structure is temporary on the expo site. The steel structure is bolted together rather than welded. The skin is of aluminum panels that can be either recycled or re-used. The large open spaces within the building facilitate adaptability, if the building is relocated and re-used instead of dismantled and recycled (its fate is not yet known, but Winslow's team will be responsible for arranging its disposal).

Grout emphasized that simplicity was important to fulfilling the vision and the message. “The building is designed here the way we'd do it if it was in downtown Philadelphia or in Los Angeles,” he explains. “It's a model for high-density, low-rise development in our cities. We have a very prominent site and it is the USA Pavilion. People will find it. We have not felt the need to do an architectural handstand to get attention.”

See also:
World Expos: USA Pavilion Groundbreaking in Shanghai
World Expos: From One Expo to the Next, Transfer of Knowledge is Tricky to Achieve
World Expos: US Congress Favors USA Pavilion at Shanghai
Good prognosis for US pavilion at Shanghai 2010
Spain’s Expo Zaragoza 2008: A Guide to the Best Pavilions and Shows
Update on Zaragoza Expo 08

 Photo of USAP groundbreaking on July 17, from the US Commerce Dept. website