Following its success in a competition held by the Polish Agency for Foreign Investment, architects Wojciech Kakowski, Marcin Mostafa and Natalia Paszkowska have appointed Buro Happold to help develop its design for a Polish Pavilion for Shanghai Expo 2010.
Inspired by Polish folklore, the outer layer of the pavilion will feature a number of inclined surfaces designed to resemble folded paper ‘cut out’ in a folk art design. The structure will contain an entrance hall consisting of an information centre, a restaurant and a shop, as well as a main exhibition, concert hall and open-air restaurant created within the fold of the building under the partial roof.
The structure will be constructed in steel and the elevation finished in wood. The outer layer of the elevation will be made of impregnated laser-cut plywood. The inner walls of the structure will be mounted with semi-transparent Teflon material membranes that will allow the exterior folk art designs to show through during the daytime.
At dusk the pavilion will be lit from the inside with different colour effects.
