Believe it or not, the Broad Pavilion, one of 17 corporate pavilions at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, was completed in under 24 hours! The six-story energy-efficient structure was designed to use just 20 percent of the materials used by other pavilions of a comparable size. It also consumes just one-sixth of the energy of similar-sized pavilions due to a series of passive solar design techniques: 15cm thick insulation, triple-layered non-metallic framed windows, exterior shading and fresh air heat recovery. “We’ve been preparing for two months, but producing all the prefabricated parts in our factory took us less than a week,” said Fu Lixin, who oversaw the pavilion. Check out a time lapse video of the construction here and a video describing the pavilion here.
+ 2010 Shanghai World Expo Coverage on Inhabitat
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As a daring visitor, I always try my luck with the VIP entrance. If you talk to them nicely explain your profession. Broad Pavilion let me into the VIP line coz I work in the building related industry.
Here’s a time-saving tip if you’re thinking of visiting the Broad Pavilion. There are two entrances. The one with the long snaking queue includes a two minute earthquake simulation, but if you’re happy to forego that then walk around to the other side of the queue and you’ll find another entrance right next to it that will have noone waiting (because it’s hidden from view). You’ll save an hour. The earthquake simulation wasn’t particularly memorable so you won’t miss much.