Construction on the building is due to start in early 2009, and the team behind the UK project for the World's Fair has just left the curator and designer of the exhibit.
The pavilion itself is a streamlined volume, a cross between a sphere and a cube, covered with thin plexiglass "cilia", each of which ends with a small LED. It is flanked by two grassy earthen ramparts, emphasizing the naturalness and softness of the structure, in keeping with the EXPO theme of “green cities”. At the base of the pavilion there will be an auditorium, a cafe, a shop and a reception hall, as well as an exhibition space; also the exposition will be placed under one of the shafts.
The author of the project, the architect Thomas Heatherwick, who won the corresponding competition a year ago, believes that its construction should be as "low-tech" as possible. Thus, it will meet the "green" focus of the EXPO and differ from most other pavilions of the exhibition. Also, according to his plan, the main hall of the pavilion should remain empty: the opposite ends of the external "cilia", also equipped with diodes, will go there, creating unusual color and light effects.
At the same time, the building customers and organizers of the United Kingdom's presentation program in Shanghai - representatives of the British Foreign Office and the Ministry of Trade and Investment, hope to present in China "the very best of the British brand." This implies the demonstration of national symbols and achievements, and not just the unusual building of the pavilion. It has not yet been possible to agree on these two lines; the only approved element of the future exhibition program was the planting of seeds from the 2000 fund of the famous Kew Botanical Garden into the outer shell of the building.
The problem with the selection of any content for an "iconic" exhibition facility is not new for Great Britain: a perfect example of such a situation is the famous Millennium Dome by Richard Rogers (1999) in Greenwich, a huge complex without any intelligible function.
