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New York firm Studio Link-Arc and a team from Tsinghua University have revealed their competition-winning design for a pavilion with an undulating roof to represent China at the World Expo 2015 in Milan.

Studio Link-Arc, which is led by Chinese architects Yichen Lu and Qinwen Cai, and Virginia native Kenneth Namkung, collaborated with researchers from Tsinghua University to develop its vision for “a cloud hovering over a land of hope”. This includes a field of crops and a wave-like roof overhead.

The designers plan to use large bamboo panels to create a series of shingles across the roof, reminiscent of the terracotta tiles used in traditional Chinese constructions. These will be fixed onto arching wooden frames, giving the building its distinctive profile.

“The pavilion’s floating roof is designed as a timber structure that references the ‘raised-beam’ system found in traditional Chinese architecture, but is adapted to accommodate modern construction technology,” said the architects.

Beneath the roof, a field of wheat designed to reference China’s agrarian past will merge into a interactive installation where LED lights are hooked up to electronic stalks.

This will lead to a series of exhibitions and cultural programs dotted around a sheltered plaza. A staircase will allow visitors to access rooftop viewing platforms, offering aerial views of both the field and the pavilion’s surroundings.

“The pavilion’s full exhibition and cultural offerings are experienced as a sequence of spaces, beginning with an exterior waiting area in the landscape, leading to a themed exhibition space with interactive installations and cultural offerings from 40 Chinese provinces,” explained the designers.

China is one of 145 nations participating in the Milan 2015 expo, which takes place from May to October. Other proposals unveiled so far include a pavilion with a field and tractors on its roof, for agricultural company New Holland.

Here’s a project description from the design team:

China Pavilion, Expo Milano 2015

Tsinghua University, along with New York-based Studio Link-Arc, has been announced as the winner of a competition to design the China Pavilion at the 2015 Milan Expo. Rejecting the typical notion of a pavilion as an object in a plaza, the China Pavilion is instead conceived as a field of spaces. Designed as a cloud hovering over a “land of hope”, the pavilion is experienced as a sheltered public plaza beneath a floating roof that incorporates the building’s cultural and exhibition programs. The roof’s distinctive profile creates an iconic image for the project and will foster a unique presence within the Expo grounds.

The China Pavilion is themed “The Land of Hope”. The project embodies this theme through an undulating roof form, which is derived by merging the profile of a city skyline on the building’s north side with the profile of a landscape on the southern side, expressing the idea that “hope” can be realised when nature and the city exist in harmony. The pavilion’s floating roof is designed as a timber structure that references the “raised-beam” system found in traditional Chinese architecture, but is adapted to accommodate modern construction technology. The roof is clad in shingled panels that reference traditional Chinese terracotta roof construction, but are reinterpreted as large bamboo panels that reduce structural weight, create a shaded public space below, and further enhance the Pavilion’s unique silhouette.

Beneath this roof, the building’s ground plane is defined by a landscape of wheat (the “field of hope”) that references China’s agrarian past and transitions seamlessly into a multimedia installation in the centre. This installation, formed from a matrix of LED “stalks” that mimic the form of the wheat, forms the centrepiece of the building’s exhibition program.

The Pavilion’s full exhibition and cultural offerings are experienced as a sequence of spaces, beginning with an exterior waiting area in the landscape, leading to a themed exhibition space with interactive installations and cultural offerings from forty Chinese provinces. After this, visitors are guided up a gently sloped public stair to a panoramic viewing platform above the LED matrix installation, after which they are guided into a multimedia space, which will feature a short film focused on returning home for the Spring Festival. This sequence concludes with visitors stepping outside onto a platform above the bamboo roof that enjoys expansive views of the Expo grounds.

Project Name: China Pavilion for Expo Milano 2015
Award: First Prize
Client: China Council for the Promotion of International Trade
Organizer: Expo Milano 2015

Architect: Tsinghua University & Studio Link-Arc
Chief Architect: Yichen Lu
Associate In Charge: Kenneth Namkung, Qinwen Cai
Project Team: Mario Bastianelli, Shuning Fan, Hyunjoo Lee, Dongyul Kim, Alban Denic , Zach Grzybowski
Structural Engineer: Simpson Gumpertz & Heger
Enclosure Engineer: Elite Facade Consultants + ATLV
MEP Engineer: Beijing Qingshang Environmental Art & Architectural Design

Design Director: Dan Su, Yue Zhang
Chief Designer: Yi Du
Exhibition Design: Yanyang Zhou, Danqing Shi
Landscape Design: Xiaosheng Cui
Interior Design: Jiansong Wang
Installation Design: Danqing Shi, Feng Xian
Light Design: Yi Du
Visual Identity Design: Xin Gu

The post China’s pavilion for Milan 2015 expo to
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The much-anticipated latest ad in the Evian baby series has launched today, this time bringing a Spider-baby into the world. CR talks to BETC Paris ECD Filip Nilsson to get the lowdown on the new spot…

The new ad joins a well-established series of baby films by BETC Paris for Evian, which have seen babies swimming, rollerskating and breakdancing. All have proved immensely popular with the public, racking up millions of views on YouTube. This latest ad is a tie-in to the new Spider-man movie, and sees Spidey dancing around with his baby self, in time to Here Comes The Hotstepper, the catchy tune that also appeared in the 2013 Baby & Me spot.

We talk to Filip Nilsson, the ECD on the spot about the movie tie-in, and the pressures of working on such a successful series.

CR: How do you keep this campaign fresh even though its been running for a while?

Filip Nilsson: I think in a way when you’ve been working on something great, success becomes a little bit your enemy. Every time you strive to do better than before, you want to have more attention, get more views on the internet. Last year, if you count all the platforms, I think we had around 140 million views for Baby and Me. In a way, after such success, you are almost nervous when you start off. And I think every time we try to look for a surprise, even more so this time, because it’s a bit a follow-up, so we had to have something really spectacular. Then Spider-man came up and we thought, it was just perfectly Evian, to have Spider-man featured as a guest star in our campaign.

Whenever we look for new ideas on Evian, we talk a lot about the concept of ‘living young’. Live Young is pretty much about fun and about charm. And I think that’s one reason why babies work so well. So, the answer to the question how do we try to keep the campaign fresh is to make sure we come up with something that is spectacular and charming at the same time.

CR: The ad features the same music as Baby & Me – is it important to have continuity between the different Evian baby ads? Why?

FN: I think continuity in the Evian campaign is much larger and much bigger than using the same music. This time is the second time we’ve used the same music and I don’t think we’re going to use it again. But it felt natural because, in a way, it’s still a sequel, even if this one is starring a more spectacular talent than the first one. It’s still the same idea – it’s still an adult that sees himself in the mirror, sees his younger ‘me’ in the mirror and starts dancing. But this particular song is not actually part of a bigger concept – it just felt natural to use it for the sequel. Besides, it’s a good dance track.

CR: How did the Spider-man tie-in come about? Why did it feel like the right fit for Evian?

FN: I think the partnership between Evian and Spider-man is a really interesting example of where things are going and how the frontier and the barrier between what is advertising and what is Hollywood has diffused. Everything is about interesting content – if you have something which is hugely popular, something that really makes people want to share it, then you’re very proactive.

This time it was Sony that contacted Evian and was interested in the Live Young campaign. They thought it had the perfect tonality for the new Spider-man movie. I think it’s really a win-win deal. It’s really interesting for Evian and it seems like it’s really interesting for Sony as well. It’s been a lot of fun as well to cooperate with a huge film company. I was a bit anxious, to be honest, before we started as despite working with all sorts of companies before, I’d never worked with a big film studio. You hear so many stories about how complicated it can be to make Hollywood films, so I was a little bit nervous. But it’s been fantastic – really professional and there are extremely nice people at Sony, so it’s been a pleasure. And for me, personally, shooting this film in LA, at Paramount Studios, together with Sony, was a real adventure.

We shot for two days in LA with a Swedish director Tomas Skoging. And we worked with the post production team, Group M in Paris. And the same stunt guys that played the real Spider-man in the actual feature film did the stunts with us so it felt like it was for real. The real stuff.

Within the Live Young campaign premise, we look for things which are spectacular, but in a charming and fun way, and I recognise that in the things Spider-man does. If you look at his personality and his character, and why Spider-man is the most popular superhero of all, I think it’s because of that. It’s because he does a lot of spectacular, really amazing stuff, but there’s also this sense of humour that goes along with it. That’s why we thought it was such a good fit for Evian. It took some time to get used to, but then it felt almost too good to be true.

CR: The Evian babies are now very established – do you see the campaign running for a long time into the future?

FN: We do. We think we’re just in the beginning of this saga of Evian Live Young, but I think we have to stay interesting, we have to find new ways of starring the babies. In the future, I don’t think it’s going to be all about adults seeing their reflection in the mirror. Now we’ve done two films this way, and before we did Rollerbabies, which was very popular. Next we will have to think of new, fresh, interesting ways to tell the story of Evian. And it’s important to remember the babies are just a metaphor. Water is the best thing you can drink, from a physical point of view … that’s the story we try to tell over and over again. So for us, the babies are a tool, or a way of explaining that the Evian water is a good way of staying fresh. I do think that we might keep babies involved for a while. It feels good and it works for the brand. On the other hand, you never know what the future will bring…

Credits:
Agency: BETC Paris
ECDS: Rémi Babinet, Filip Nilsson
Creatives: Agnès Cavard, Félix Falzon, Valérie Chidlovsky
TV Producer: Fabrice Brovelli
Production company: Acne
Director: Tomas Skoging
Post: Group M