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UAE Pavilion At EXPO 2010 Wins SEAOI’s Best Medium Structure Project |
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The UAE Pavilion at the Shanghai Exposition 2010 was awarded best category for Medium Sized Projects by the The Structural Engineers Association of Illinois (SEAOI). Martin Castle of SEAOI described the UAE Pavilion, a unique shell structure inspired by the sand dune landscape of the UAE, as a magnificent innovative work and a great engineering achievement. SEAOI’s 2010 Excellence in Structural Engineering Competition awards were announced at the Annual Banquet on June 5th at Murphy Auditorium of the American College of Surgeons. Winning projects were selected by a distinguished panel of judges. Saqr Ghobash, Minister of Labour and Chairman of the National Media Council, which oversees the project, welcomed the announcement and said the UAE Pavilion at EXPO 2010 as the UAE’s biggest participation in international exhibitions. Situated on largest plot size (6000 square metres) available to Expo participants, The Dunes, as the building has become known, has a footprint of 3452 square metres and encloses a total of approximately 3900 square metres of exhibition space, information areas, and other facilities. "A pavilion like no other", is how the imaginative and appealing structure for the United Arab Emirates’ pavilion was described by HE Salim Al Ameri, UAE Commissioner General, at the official ground breaking on the country’s site at Expo 2010, on 2 April. The event was attended by officials from the United Arab Emirates and from the Chinese Organising Committee together with local VIPs, architects, consultants and contractors involved in the UAE Pavilion. Inspired by one of the country’s most evocative natural landscapes, the precipitous sand-dunes of the UAE’s legendary deserts, the building is a triumph of form and function, harmonising nature and architecture to create a fascinating structure that commands attention and reminds visitors of the Expo 2010 theme: ’Better City, Better Life’. Designed by Foster + Partners, one of the world’s leading architectural teams, the building will be a truly recyclable Expo pavilion. Following completion of Expo it will be dismantled and moved to a more permanent location in the United Arab Emirates, thus gaining maximum value from the extensive planning, design and construction that is involved in Expo participation. |
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