The Future of Us Exhibition Pavilion
Designer: Professor Thomas Schroepfer and the Advanced Architecture Laboratory team
Client: Singapore University of Technology and Design
Category: Social
SUTD’s research and design work for the state-of-the-art ‘The Future of Us’ pavilion explores a new dialogue between architecture and tropical nature through the use of advanced design and fabrication technology.
The structure provides visitors a stunning play of light and shade, cast by an intricate metal lattice, like a walk in an imaginary forest. The light-filtering effect of the project is based on about 11,000 differing perforated aluminium panels that produce intricate geometric patterns of varying porosities. SUTD’s design process employed cutting edge computational tools to analyse environmental data such as day- light factors and prevailing winds to provide a structural building ‘skin’ that generates both the shading and visual effects of the lush foliage of tropical trees. The pavilion structure spans about 40m and rises to about 16m.
Singapore University of Technology and Design’s Advanced Architecture Laboratory was appointed to conceive and design the large-scale structural building envelope for ‘The Future of Us’ exhibition in late 2014. The invitation was preceded by an evolutionary series of design creations and explorations conducted by the Advanced Architecture Laboratory, ranging from the award-winning Dhoby Ghaut Green Project (2013) to the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale Generative Aesthetics for Tropical Urban Living creation (exhibited at the Singapore National Design Centre).
The above sequence of architectural investigations allowed the AAL team to systematically expand and refine their research in developing a climatically responsive ‘skin’ and validate the feasibility of their proof of concept on an ever large scale of execution.
