One of the more highly anticipated projects for the New Year is Expo 2020 Dubai. Organized every five years, this will be the first to be held in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia region and will opinion October 20, 2020 (10/20/20). The world expo lasts six months and is created as a global destination for millions of people to share ideas, showcase innovation, encourage collaboration and celebrate human ingenuity. ArchDaily reports, “The United Arab Emirates and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, selected the theme “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future,” and is organized around ideas of sustainability, mobility and opportunity.
Each pavilion will carry one of the prevailing themes. For instance, the theme designated for the Luxembourg’s Pavilion by Metaform and The Space Factory is “Opportunity.” It reflects the history of Luxembourg, its present and future and will reflect the country: small and ambitious, intriguing and reassuring, and above all generous and open.
The USA Pavilion by Fentress Architects will embrace the ‘spirit of mobility.’ In line with its theme of “What Moves You? The Spirit of Mobility,” the US Pavilion will project a sense of movement, giving the impression that the building itself is in motion.
And Malaysia’s ‘Energising Sustainability’ theme captures Malaysia’s commitment to balance socio-economic progress with environmental concerns, to ensure a secure and sustainable future. The Pavilion will focus on carbon net-zero by offsetting the carbon used in construction, operations, materials and recovery.
In addition to the different country pavilions, there will be three thematic pavilions designed by award-winning architectural firms. The themed pavilions will include: The Sustainability Pavilion by Grimshaw, Mobility Pavilion by Foster + Partners, and the Opportunity Pavilion by AGi Architects.
Worth mentioning is the UK Pavilion which will feature award-winning artist and designer Es Devlin, the first female designer of a UK Pavilion since its inception in 1851. It will highlight “leading British expertise in Artificial Intelligence and Space,” and will be produced in collaboration with global brand agency Avantgarde. Devlin and a predominantly female team of experts from the fields of artificial intelligence and space technology will feature a continuously changing poem on the exterior, generated by artificial intelligence and visitors’ contributions. Devlin views the project as an inspiration for “girls and young women to investigate areas of science and technology that they might otherwise have felt weren’t for them.”
Visitors of Expo 2020 Dubai will venture through the pavilions, enjoy immersive cultural experiences and discover what makes each participating nation unique. Visitors will also get a “taste of the future” by riding the Dubai Metro Route 2020, which will take 46,000 passengers per hour to and from the Expo site in under 16 minutes from Dubai Marina.