Sustainability Mobility. Alif – The Mobility Pavilion by Foster + Partners
12/10/2021.
Expo Dubai 2020 [Dubai] United Arab Emirates
metalocus, CARLOS GONZÁLEZ
metalocus, CARLOS GONZÁLEZ
Project description by Foster + Partners
Alif – The Mobility Pavilion, designed by Foster + Partners, is one of Expo 2020 Dubai’s three signature pavilions based on the sub-themes of Mobility, Sustainability and Opportunity. The pavilion has been a collaborative project with Expo 2020 Dubai, exemplifying the event’s overall theme ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’.
“This is the third World Expo that we have been involved in, the two previous were in Shanghai and Milan. These events are incredible opportunities to showcase innovation from around the world. Similarly, Alif – The Mobility Pavilion conveys new ideas of mobility in a simple, yet thought-provoking and engaging manner, as we look towards the future of Dubai and the UAE in its aspirations, its technology and its investment.”
Gerard Evenden, Head of Studio at Foster + Partners
The Mobility Pavilion, named Alif (after the first letter of the Arabic alphabet and symbolising the beginning of progress and new horizons), occupies a dedicated plaza at the south entrance to the site and has a lively, dynamic landscape conceived as a fairground with undulating tracks and demonstration areas for the latest technological innovations related to mobility.
The surrounding landscaped areas correspond to the internal functions of the pavilion, with three main zones offering a variety of spaces for visitors to relax and enjoy the spectacle. A partly underground, partly open-air 330-metre track will allow visitors to see cutting-edge mobility devices in action, as well as witness mass produced technology that has the opportunity to vastly improve the quality of life for people in developing countries (e.g. solar-powered tricycles in Africa).
A raised platform for large-scale presentations and performances, The Stage is optimally located for a changing schedule of complementary events with a sheltered viewing area for the underground portions of the high-speed track. The Bowl is a large amphitheatre that can seat up to 500 people conveniently located at the pavilion’s exit, making it an ideal spot for visitors to rest and contemplate their journey.
Internally, the display areas are divided into three key zones, each forming a petal in the tri-foil plan. Visitors enter directly into the central core, which features the world’s largest passenger lift, capable of holding more than 160 persons, (38 for social distancing restrictions). This moving platform takes everyone up to the third level where they can then move down through successive interconnected galleries to the lower ground floor, viewing innovative, immersive and interactive visitor experiences focussed on mobility.
“The design of the building and the exhibition have evolved together right from the outset in close collaboration with the Expo team. The tri-foil plan of the building has developed around the creation of three volumes which will house a dedicated space for each of these sections. The exterior landscape of the building forms a platform for interactive shows and experiments that explore the notion of Mobility,”
Gerard Evenden
Sustainability was at the forefront of the design and the building is designed to achieve a LEED Gold rating. An expression of the dynamic nature of mobility, the self-shading façade features horizontal highly reflective stainless-steel fins that step back towards the ground, reflecting the heat and providing shade for the glazing. These fins form a canopy for each of the three entrances, while the roof hosts an array of both photovoltaic and solar hot water panels. After Expo 2020, the Mobility Pavilion will continue in legacy, becoming an integral element of District 2020.
Norman Foster is considered by many to be the most prominent architect in Britain. He won the 1999 Pritzker Architecture Prize and the 2009 Príncipe de Asturias de las Artes Prize.
Lord Foster rebuilt the Reichstag as a new German Parliament in Berlin and designed a contemporary Great Court for the British Museum. He linked St. Paul's Cathedral to the Tate Modern with the Millennium Bridge, a steel footbridge across the Thames. He designed the Hearst Corporation Building in Manhattan, at 57th Street and Eighth Avenue.
He was born in Manchester, England, in 1935. Among his firm’s many other projects are London’s City Hall, the Bilbao Metro in Spain, the Canary Wharf Underground Station in London and the renovated courtyard of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery in Washington.
In the 1970s, Lord Foster was one of the most visible practitioners of a high-tech architecture that fetishized machine culture. His triumphant 1986 Hong Kong and Shanghai bank building, conceived as a kit-of-parts plugged into a towering steel frame, was capitalism's answer to the populist Pompidou Center in Paris.
Nicolai Ouroussoff, The Times’s architecture critic, has written that although Lord Foster’s work has become sleeker and more predictable in recent years, his forms are always driven by an internal structural logic, and they treat their surroundings with a refreshing bluntness.
Awarded the Prince of Asturias of the Arts 2009.
METALOCUS > 05.2017