Expo Milano 2015: Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life
After Beijing in 2010, it is Milan’s turn to host the Universal Exhibition from 1 May to 31 October 2015. Since 1851, this international event has been exhibiting the means available by humanity to satisfy its basic needs by showcasing the latest advances and future opportunities in a variety of fields. Over 140 participating countries are expected for this year’s Expo Milano 2015, which has chosen the theme «Feeding the planet, energy for life.» Keeping with tradition, the world’s most acclaimed architects have been commissioned to design the pavilions. Pushing beyond the boundaries of creativity, these pavilions offer up form, avant-garde design and function that collectively breathe life into buildings intended to embody the spirit of the countries they represent, their knowledge and their power of innovation. France is a major agricultural country. Geology has endowed it with an abundant array of terroirs and it boasts a deep-rooted genealogical heritage that has given rise to cultural and gastronomical traditions celebrated throughout the world. The French Pavilion conveys this productive diversity with a new twist on the iconic covered market through shapes that simultaneously echo the territory and «pieces» of the landscape. In January 2014, the architecture firm XTU was recognised for its dedication to earth-sustaining ground-breaking green architecture when it won FranceAgriMer’s design competition for the French Pavilion at the Expo Milano 2015, winning over the firms SOA, Chabanne and Partners, Moatti Rivière and Rudy Ricciotti.
X for the unknown mathematical variable and TU for the suffix in situ – references to the geography and the landscape of work done by Nicolas Desmazières and Anouk Legendre, the architects who founded XTU in 2000. Among its many projects, XTU designed the Jeongok Prehistory Museum in South Korea and has worked on the Musée des Civilisations in La Reunion (MCUR), the first positive energy museum in the Indian Ocean and the Museum of Wine in Bordeaux. These forays into a range of climatic and cultural settings shifted the firm’s focus to an undying commitment to the environment through architecture inspired entirely by nature, from wind and water to shadows and wildlife. This is what literally and figuratively makes XTU’s projects take on organic forms with a futuristic feel. Standing by a conviction that architecture should predict the future and the biotechnological transformation will be the Third Industrial Revolution, the architects at XTU are heavily invested in urban agriculture and experimental research, which lies at the intersection of the life sciences, ecology, architecture and urban development. They achieve this by striving to design fertile energy-producing buildings through collaborations with industrialists, chemists and engineers. The progeny is the first « manifesto project » for an offshore city called X_ seaty that runs on ocean-derived energies. This led to the innovative SymBiO2 concept, a biofaçade system that symbiotically grows micro-algae in symbiosis with a building and uses photosynthesis to produce bioenergy. The bionic projects were introduced at a monographic exhibition in 2010 at the Paris Galerie d’Architecture, at Archilab 2014 in the Frac Centre, the Algocultures Expo at the Pavillon de l’Arsenal and the 2014 International Architecture Exhibition in Venice.
How do you symbolise France’s identity when it comes to food? How has consumption and production changed? How do you showcase innovations from France?
The market archetype
The architects began by talking with agriculture experts and sociologists, which gave them an image of France’s food identity as a product of its amazing geological and genealogical diversity. These natural resources shaped the peaks and valleys, the climate regions, the way people use the land, the varied cultures and products – and its superb cuisine. The contest specifications referenced the Halles de Baltard market, a landmark of production and consumption, a timeless confluence of all the links in the agri-food chain. XTU galvanized the idea of a covered market as the crossroads where all foods meet and decided to produce what it considers the archetypal market: free-standing spaces sheltered under one huge roof.
A built landscape
«France symbolises a cultural wonder, industrial know-how, the good life,» reflects architect Anouk Legendre. «That is what we wanted to show the world by inventing a « built landscape » that all at once portrays the geographic diversity of France’s regions, its unique agricultural offerings and culinary traditions.» When asked about the theme «Feeding the planet, energy for life,» XTU says, «Terrain as fertile ground for the new food revolution,» with a building that stands for the promise of France’s regions. The pavilion, inspired by France’s hexagonal shape, seems to have been pushed up here and there by tectonic shifts. This « built landscape » has sidled into the «market» on the underside of the ceiling, the only part crowds will see as they stream into the 2,000 m² space. Contorted by reminiscent ripples, the « landscape ceiling» casts a striking feature that abstractly depicts the wide breadth of France’s terroirs. That is what introduces the scientific content staged by Adeline Rispal’s exhibition design.
Upside-down Eager to lure in visitors, the architects engineered a full-immersion approach to the stagecraft by pushing the ‘pull factor’. The « territory building» invites people from the outside to embark on a journey inside. Once past the pavilion’s doors, visitors are plunged into the upside-down world of the hilly countryside. Tree-like pillars support the «lived-in roof» that frames the spaces, functional areas and pathways; the ground floor houses the exhibit booths, an actual market and partner zones. Unlike conventional covered markets where products are displayed in stalls, this staged version features a variety of themes the pavilion covers in chambers created by the structure. These «vaults of plenty» serve up a menu of offerings like regional specialities, delicacy tastings, scientific and biotechnological research, agro-ecology, new agri-food technologies, genetic discoveries, life chemistry and beneficial flora. The next floor hosts offices and VIP rooms. The top floor is a restaurant.
Free forms The glue-laminated structure is completely made of French wood: the interior in spruce and the exterior in larch. Every building element – from the main and supporting structures and ceiling to the floorboards and façades – is made of interlocked pieces forming a single unified edifice that simultaneously outlines the exterior casing and the interior expanse. The carpentars Simonin used a super-high precision digitally controlled robot that when combined with the architecture software cut out every angle of the framework. The main structure is made of lattice girders and pillars spaced at 4.5 m and braced by a supporting framework slotted in every 1.5 m. The result is a series of highly uniform right-angle cubicles. The project is ground-breaking because this orthogonal frame is “cragged” (notched) into uneven shapes called “frees” that create a stunning vault-like effect. The complex geometry of the French Pavilion’s framework creates a roller coaster of curves that demonstrates wood’s ability to mould into unexpected organic contours. Beyond its dramatic form, this marquee is a showcase for French innovation in wood architecture using invisible fastening systems patented by Résix®.
A low-tech green structure
The French Pavilion adopted a low-tech approach, so the entire building can be taken apart and put back together. With its cross-ventilation and the central clerestory designed for its heat extraction process, the « landscape market » will be naturally ventilated and cool, making it a low-energy consumption building.
Before visitors go into the market, they walk through a farmed «field» divided into strips. Each few strips are designed like furrows that display different sorts of agricultural production like grains, vegetables, orchards and livestock to illustrate the diversity and abundance of France’s soil. As they make their way through the nourishing terrain, they watch a series of landscapes played on three large screens (production: Les Films d’ici). Based on its belief that buildings will one day be fertile, XTU wanted these façades to be used as trellises for hop vine seedlings. The hops will be harvested in October at the end of Expo 2015.
Abundant scenery design As visitors walk under the pavilion’s archway, they are greeted with a plethora of materials, smells, vegetables, products and technologies. The pavilion is granary and barn, cathedral and beehive, innovation lab and experimental hub, land of discovery and classroom all rolled into one. Adeline Rispal has designed scenes to cover a range of themes like precision farming and agroecology, advances in genetics, beneficial flora, life chemistry, aquaculture, algae, climate change, water, the nutritional value of foods and the latest agri-food technologies. The French General Commission worked with intertrade research groups and private partnerships to develop a scientific programme that covers a range of topics from local to global, conventional to hightech and cottage industry to the most cutting-edge industrialization. The French farming and agri-food model will also be the subject of colloquia, conferences, discussion forums and videoconferences, not to the mention cooking demonstrations, culinary events, tastings and cultural gatherings. XTU designed the scenery for the VIP spaces, for which they curated and installed fine art photographs by Pauline Daniel, Pascal Rostain and Jean-Jacques Pallot conveying the theme of food and wasted food resources.
An innovative symbiosis between micro-algae and building, the SymBio2 project is engineering « biofaçades » that grow micro-algae by harnessing the power of thermal and chemical exchanges with the host building. The project aims to improve the building’s environmental properties (energy performance, CO2 capture, sewage recovery, reduction of heat islands and urban sprawl, short circuits) and offer a cost-saving alternative solution for the farming sector, which is currently being stunted by skyrocketing costs. An invention of XTU Architects, these «biofaçades» embed «biological solar sensors» in high performance green façades. The sensors are intensified plane photobioreactors developed by the GEPEA laboratory (CNRS/University of Nantes/Oniris/Ecole des Mines de Nantes), one of the most cutting-edge labs researching bio-energies and controlled micro-algae farming. The system encapsulates a flat waterjet a few centimetres thick that allows the algae to propagate and grow. Designed in collaboration with engineering firms Oasiis and RFR, the technology behind these « biofaçades » also helps reduce the energy consumption micro-algae farming requires to regulate heat by 80% over conventional basinbased farming and save over 50% of the building’s heating and cooling power compared to a standard RT2012 building (Grenelle Environment Thermal Regulation). The first pilot project was designed for a waste incineration plant.
