Showing a post carbon future

World Expo 2017 Site

Location: Astana, Kazhakstan
Client: National Expo Company Kazakhstan

Programme: 7179 ha Expo and Post-Expo Masterplan for the World Expo 2017, Design of the Pavilion of Kazakhstan

Astana will be holding the World Expo 2017. The event will showcase how the world will transfer from the carbon economy in a third industrial revolution to become independent from fossil fuel.

The proposed masterplan and the layout of the expo and its monument address this while also coping with Astana’s monumentality. Instead of creating a ‘white elephant’ which will be empty and unused after the exposition, the icon proposed is a concentrated solar power plant which doubles ad Kazakhstan pavilion, vista tower and monumental symbol – the tower of the sun. A field of mirrors provides a shaded space that later on will be used a park. This ‘modular monument derived from technical needs’ provides multiple answers and will allow to show generation, use and storage of future fuels derived from the power of the sun. Astana has one of the highest number of clear sky sun days worldwide and therefore the proposed solar power plant will be able not only to cover the energy needs for the Expo but will provide enough heat and power to serve the entire wider Expo site.

During the Expo, under the field of mirrors temporary pavilions will be allocated that later on will be used as sustainability training centers throughout the country.

A key focus has been on the reuse both of the expo site as well as its surroundings. All road infrastructure that serves the parking will be kept in use and form the street network of the quarters to emerge in the future. These have been designed in such a way that they – while maintaining an ‘outer monumentality’ – deliver human scale spaces and places.

The Kazakhstan Pavilion offers an open space – the expo plaza under a raised multi-purpose box that during the expo serves as exhibition space and after will be re-used as library of the university and offices.

Executed, the plan will live up to the ambition of creating a tangible legacy of this mega-event as we already successfully developed it for the Olympic Legacy Masterplan for London.

Stages:
2013 Competition

Team:
MLA+: Markus Appenzeller, Johan Bergström, Pinar Bozoglan, Yana Golubeva, Mikhail Stepura