INDIA PAVILLION
SHANGHAI

INDIA PAVILLION
SHANGHAI

INDIA PAVILLION
SHANGHAI

ISSUES
SPACE | HERITAGE
KEY ASPECTS
RESEARCH | DESIGN
ARTICULATION OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST GREEN BAMBOO DOME
An Expo is an incredible opportunity for every nation to showcase its best – not just in material or technological terms but also in charting new paths to growth and the future. The Shanghai Expo, themed as Better Cities, Better Life, brought forth a profusion of imaginations from across the globe, exploring ideas of urbanity, aesthetics and sustainability.
The Tree of Life in stone
Tree of Life as a graphic
Developing the Tree of Life for construction
Hand drawn lines on a gigantic hemisphere
Planting in a soil-less medium
Crucial components of the green dome developed on site
A carefully chosen palette of edible & medicinal plants
The central void as a multi functional space
The India Pavillion was one of the most visited in the Expo
The completed work
The dome at night - an understated spectacle
The India Pavillion sought to explore future directions using learnings form the past. Celebrating India’s great cultural heritage and its diversity, the design is grounded in the nation’s pool of arts, science and technology and projects the co-evolution of the urban and the rural. Duality is a metaphor for India herself and becomes the underlying pattern. The duality is reflected in the two spaces of the courtyard and the dome. They represent space that is open and covered, both critical in tropical environments. They represent the boundless and the bounded, informal and formal. 

The pavilion becomes a metaphor for the bazaar and the temple, rural and the urban, the past and the future. The place invents the future of our past, using the present for its realization. It hints at future materials: not energy consuming steel and glass, but evolved, intelligent use of ecological materials such as bamboo, ferro-cement and herbs.

The skin of the bamboo dome was an intensive engagement with visual aesthetics, cultural references and plant ecology. Reinterpreting the Tree of Life at the Siddi Sayyidi mosque, the visual was transposed onto the hemisphere using copper sheets, the interstitials populated with plant material that was indigenous to China but with their cultural moorings in India. Nutrient irrigation and planting is in a soilless medium, drainage, illumination and photovoltaic panels integrated in a seamless manner. The Indian tricolour adorning the outer walls of the pavilion too are using plant material.

The design team comprised of M/s. Shift, PSDA, EDS and INDÉ and was led by JWT. The India Pavillion was commissioned by the Indian Trade Promotion Organisation of the Government of India.

FOR PROJECTS BY TYPOLOGY

CLICK HERE
ISSUES
SPACE | HERITAGE
KEY ASPECTS
RESEARCH | DESIGN
ARTICULATION OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST GREEN BAMBOO DOME
An Expo is an incredible opportunity for every nation to showcase its best – not just in material or technological terms but also in charting new paths to growth and the future. The Shanghai Expo, themed as Better Cities, Better Life, brought forth a profusion of imaginations from across the globe, exploring ideas of urbanity, aesthetics and sustainability. 
The India Pavillion sought to explore future directions using learnings form the past. 
Celebrating India’s great cultural heritage and its diversity, the design is grounded in the nation’s pool of arts, science and technology and projects the co-evolution of the urban and the rural. Duality is a metaphor for India herself and becomes the underlying pattern. The duality is reflected in the two spaces of the courtyard and the dome. They represent space that is open and covered, both critical in tropical environments. They represent the boundless and the bounded, informal and formal. 
The Tree of Life in stone
Tree of Life as a graphic
Developing the Tree of Life for construction
Hand drawn lines on a gigantic hemisphere
Planting in a soil-less medium
Crucial components of the green dome developed on site
A carefully chosen palette of edible & medicinal plants
The central void as a multi functional space
The India Pavillion was one of the most visited in the Expo
The completed work
The dome at night - an understated spectacle
The skin of the bamboo dome was an intensive engagement with visual aesthetics, cultural references and plant ecology. 

Reinterpreting the Tree of Life at the Siddi Sayyidi mosque, the visual was transposed onto the hemisphere using copper sheets, the interstitials populated with plant material that was indigenous to China but with their cultural moorings in India. 
Nutrient irrigation and planting is in a soilless medium, drainage, illumination and photovoltaic panels integrated in a seamless manner. The Indian tricolour adorning the outer walls of the pavilion too are using plant material.

The design team comprised of M/s. Shift, PSDA, EDS and INDÉ and was led by JWT. The India Pavillion was commissioned by the Indian Trade Promotion Organisation of the Government of India.

FOR PROJECTS BY TYPOLOGY

CLICK HERE
ISSUES
SPACE | HERITAGE
KEY ASPECTS
RESEARCH | DESIGN
ARTICULATION OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST GREEN BAMBOO DOME
An Expo is an incredible opportunity for every nation to showcase its best – not just in material or technological terms but also in charting new paths to growth and the future. The Shanghai Expo, themed as Better Cities, Better Life, brought forth a profusion of imaginations from across the globe, exploring ideas of urbanity, aesthetics and sustainability. 
The India Pavillion sought to explore future directions using learnings form the past. 
Celebrating India’s great cultural heritage and its diversity, the design is grounded in the nation’s pool of arts, science and technology and projects the co-evolution of the urban and the rural. Duality is a metaphor for India herself and becomes the underlying pattern. The duality is reflected in the two spaces of the courtyard and the dome. They represent space that is open and covered, both critical in tropical environments. They represent the boundless and the bounded, informal and formal. 
The Tree of Life in stone
Tree of Life as a graphic
Developing the Tree of Life for construction
Hand drawn lines on a gigantic hemisphere
Planting in a soil-less medium
Crucial components of the green dome developed on site
A carefully chosen palette of edible & medicinal plants
The central void as a multi functional space
The India Pavillion was one of the most visited in the Expo
The completed work
The dome at night - an understated spectacle
The pavilion becomes a metaphor for the bazaar and the temple, rural and the urban, the past and the future. The place invents the future of our past, using the present for its realization. It hints at future materials: not energy consuming steel and glass, but evolved, intelligent use of ecological materials such as bamboo, ferro-cement and herbs.

The skin of the bamboo dome was an intensive engagement with visual aesthetics, cultural references and plant ecology. Reinterpreting the Tree of Life at the Siddi Sayyidi mosque, the visual was transposed onto the hemisphere using copper
sheets, the interstitials populated with plant material thatwas indigenous to China but with their cultural moorings in India. Nutrient irrigation and planting is in a soilless medium, drainage, illumination and photovoltaic panels integrated in a seamless manner. The Indian tricolour adorning the outer walls of the pavilion too are using plant material.

The design team comprised of M/s. Shift, PSDA, EDS and INDÉ and was led by JWT. The India Pavillion was commissioned by the Indian Trade Promotion Organisation of the Government of India.

FOR PROJECTS BY TYPOLOGY

CLICK HERE
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