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Construction Completed on Shanghai’s Amazing Dream Cube Pavilion
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Bridgette Meinhold
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Architecture,Automotive,Design,Interior Design |
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As visitors enter the building they first come into the queue where they learn that their actions can have effects on the lights of the building. By clapping their hands and waving their arms, their collective response makes the LED lights change. Visitors then go through a series of interactive exhibits describing the city of Shanghai, and finally they come to the “Dream Cube Control Room”, where an interactive surprise awaits them and will hopefully give them reason to think.
US firm ESI Design and architect Yung Ho Chang collaborated on the entire interactive design. On top of the use of recycled materials and LED lights, the Pavilion features a solar thermal tube screen on the roof, which can collect solar energy to produce hot water up to more than 200° F. The roof also collects rainwater, then filters and stores it for daily use in the Pavilion as well as for use in the misters. After the Expo, the building materials will be recycled again for other applications.
+ ESI Design
Photo credits: Basil Childers via ESI Design Flickr
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So we knew that the Shanghai Corporate Pavilion was rad – it’s made from recycled cd cases, but we didn’t know how rad until the designers of the project sent us the first pictures of the completed pavilion. The entire facade of the building is covered in an LED array that can be changed on a whim, but — and here’s where it gets cool — the lighting scheme is determined by people interacting inside the building. Computers aren’t controlling the lighting, people are with their actions, like waving…
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Millions of LED lights cover the exterior of the pavilion, which is made from recycled materials. Rather than being controlled by a computer program, the lighting is determined by the visitors inside. The Dream Cube pulses different colors and designs
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ESI Design and architect Yung Ho Chang collaborated on the process from the beginning, designing a building focused on the visitors’ experience and creating a synergy between the exhibit and the architecture.
photo credit: Basil Childers
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As visitors enter the building, they wait in the cube and learn about how they have the ability to control the lights through their actions.
photo credit: Basil Childers
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By clapping their hands and waving their arms they can change the color of the lights. This practice session is to help build up the anticipation for what happens in the Dream Control Room.
photo credit: Basil Childers
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Other internal ambient conditions help visitors transition from the outdoor environment to one of a dream-like state. Bluish lights and ambient music ease that transition.
photo credit: Basil Childers
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After riding the escalator, visitors are welcomed onto the Landing, which introduces the theme of the Dream Cube, “My City, Our Dreams.”
photo credit: Basil Childers
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Then visitors walk through an interactive exhibit on the rural beginnings of Shanghai. The exhibit includes media walls, sculptural lighting as well as curious, glowing plant beds.
photo credit: Basil Childers
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As visitors travel along the path of Green Shanghai, they experience the different seasons – spring, summer, fall and winter.
photo credit: Basil Childers
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Visitors can change the color of the plant beds by simply placing their hands on the interactive LEDs
photo credit: Basil Childers
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After the tranquil stroll through early Shanghai, visitors enter a new world representative of the current Shanghai, which eerily resembles the interior of a Las Vegas casino.
photo credit: Basil Childers
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Then visitors enter the “Dream Cube Control Room” through a secret door, where they meet Professor Butterfly, who represents people’s dreams for the future. She takes them on a 360 degree tour of Shanghai, complete with special effects.
photo credit: Basil Childers
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Professor Butterfly gets the audience to participate by performing a series of actions – clapping their hands and waving their arms, which makes the exterior of the building pulse in response. The audience is then “transformed” because their collective actions elicit a response in the building. Profound huh?
photo credit: Basil Childers
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