Ralph Appelbaum Associates

Vanke, the largest residential housing developer in China, commissioned RAA to design their pavilion at the Milan Expo 2015. Responding to the theme of the 2015 Milano Expo, Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life, the Vanke Pavilion aimed to deliver a powerful story through a spectacular media landscape. Within an undulating space designed by Studio Daniel Libeskind, the pavilion illuminated the sense of displacement one feels upon coming to the city and, in contrast, the feeling of calm and community one can experience when sharing a meal.

Working with Studio Daniel Libeskind, RAA was inspired to fill the singular form of the pavilion as completely as possible; the bamboo scaffoldings used extensively in Asia influenced the choice of materials and structural forms. These forms exploded into abstraction, becoming an expressionist painting in three dimensions and a scaffold only for content, stretched from floor to ceiling and wall to wall.

Similarly exploded and abstracted within this structure are the media. Working closely with Vanke, RAA developed a narrative delivered as a visual poem that vacillates between chaos and calm. The visual canvas was blown apart into 200 square screens, scattered throughout the space as if a glass had been shattered and its pieces frozen in midair. All monitors in the pavilion are purposefully square, resembling single pixels torn from the screen and dispersed in space. As a result, when the media plays, a multiplicity of elements create a common story—in much the same way the people who travel from diverse regions in China to its cities share a common narrative.