ESI Design Shapes Dream Cube for Shanghai's World Expo

More than 70 million visitors will pass through the corporate pavilion, designed in collaboration with Yung Ho Chang of Atelier FCJZ Architects.

Nicholas Tamarin -- Interior Design, 3/18/2010 12:00:00 AM

ESI Design principal Edwin Schlossberg has a surprise in store for Shanghai—the Dream Cube, a conceptual handle for the Shanghai Corporate Pavilion he's designed for World Expo, running May 1 to October 31 in Shanghai.

More than 70 million visitors are expected to pass through the 43,000-square-foot structure, which was commissioned to display the collaborative spirit of the Chinese city and its corporate community through futuristic media and building technologies.



Working with Yung Ho Chang of Atelier FCJZ Architects, New York-based Schlossberg envisioned a 20-minute visitor experience that takes participants through four areas: an entry, a transition area, a “dreamer’s path,” papered with photos submitted to the Pavilion’s website based on different monthly themes, and the Dream Cube Control Room, a 360-degree theater where the collective movements of visitors control millions of LED lights on the Cube’s façade.



In line with its forward-thinking mission, the pavilion was designed with a plethora of sustainable elements. A solar-tube screen on the roof collects heat to generate electricity and produce hot water. The building’s misting system, which creates an ethereal dream-like effect on the exterior while keeping visitors cool, uses recycled rainwater. And in a country that produces nearly 140 million tons of plastic waste every year, only 25 percent of it reclaimed and recycled, the pavilion boasts a façade of recycled polycarbonate tubes that can be recycled yet again when the Expo ends.





All images by Basil Childers; courtesy of ESI Design.