Expo 2020 Dubai has unveiled the details of its overall strategy to help accelerate a momentum towards a greener and cleaner future, showcased by a Sustainability Pavilion that is envisioned as an inspiration for a new generation of guardians of the earth’s welfare.

Designs showing the vision for the structure, which will be located in the heart of the 4.38 sq km Expo 2020 Dubai site in Dubai South, and other innovative projects at the heart of its mission, are being exhibited for the first time at the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW) from January 16 to 19, at the expo’s centrally located exhibition stand, said a statement from the organisers.

The pavilion is expected to be a magnet for Expo 2020 Dubai visitors, especially children and youth, interested in science and best practice sustainability – a key theme of the World Expo, it said.

It will continue its immersive and educational mission as a science ‘Exploratorium’ after Expo’s April 2021 closure, it added.

Expo 2020 Dubai’s ambitions align closely with those of the UAE, which has elevated the issue of sustainable progress to become a core pillar of government strategy as seen in the UAE Vision 2021, and numerous sustainability initiatives within the country.

Reem Al Hashimy, UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation and director general, Dubai Expo 2020 Bureau, explained that the Sustainability Pavilion’s structure and its exhibitions were only building blocks of a more important overall ambition to make a fundamental change to the mindset of its visitors, the nation and the region in which it is hosted.

She said: “Sustainability is at the heart of this World Expo and the legacy we aim to leave behind for the region. Our pavilion will play a major part in this effort, and will serve as an ‘oasis’ for sustainable and innovative experiences and practices – linking to the strategy of the UAE government to be a leader in sustainability on a global scale,” she said.

“With the world’s population growing at such a rate and its consumption of our natural resources expanding ever faster, we need all the converts to a more sustainable way of living we can find and we should start with the young,” she added.

“So we see our mission at Expo 2020 Dubai as nothing less than a moral obligation to ensure that these touchpoints of education and inspiration are meaningful, lasting and relevant to the 25 million visits we hope to attract,” Al Hashimy said.

A panel discussion, touching on these and other important issues surrounding the stewardship of the earth, will take place in the main ADSW conference – From Sustainable Design to Sustainability Movements in Communities – which will be held on January 18, (1200-1225).

The list of speakers will include Expo 2020 Dubai’s vice president of Legacy Impact and Development, Marjan Faraidooni; director of Youth, Alya Al-Ali; and key figures in the design and engineering team for the pavilion.

Expo team members will also be meeting other experts and business owners for their input and insights, including the Steam topics that are core to Expo 2020 Dubai thinking: science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.

The pavilion is planned to take much of its energy and water needs from the sun and atmosphere, one of the world’s first large scale applications of such technology. It will be a tangible testament to the focus and progress made in the field of sustainability in the UAE, and at the same time, showcase global best practices, said a statement.

The expo has recruited a world-class team of architects, designers and experts from the fields of ecology and technology to design the pavilion, which will be unique in the region and ‘an oasis’ for sustainable living in a desert environment. It is expected to attract some 30,000 visitors every day, it said.

UK-based Grimshaw Architects won an international bidding process to build the Sustainability Pavilion, alongside US design firm Thinc and engineers from BuroHappold, it added.

Grimshaw Architects’ deputy chairman Andrew Whalley, said the building drew inspiration from nature’s models of sustainability such as the process of photosynthesis, which nourishes plants and flowers, capturing energy from sunlight and fresh water from the humid air.

Whalley continued: “We want the pavilion to be an example of what really can be done in even the harsh environment of the desert, where it’s hot and there’s a shortage of water.  

 “We will use cutting-edge technologies that will be tomorrow’s everyday realities,” he concluded. – TradeArabia News Service