Pavilion Zero

Pavilion Zero is the first building you encounter when visiting Expo 2015 in Milan when arriving via the western entrances. Its main function is to introduce the general theme of the event, “Feed the Planet, Energy for Life”, telling visitors about the wealth of aspects inherent in these words.
Rectangular in shape, it occupies an area of 10,000 m² and is conceived as a portion of the Earth’s crust, methodically cut and raised, inviting us to enter in depth to discover the planet’s secrets. Ten themed spaces follow each other in succession like caves with naturally irregular shapes in an atmosphere of semi-darkness, each devoted to a different cultural production of mankind.
From the point of view of construction, Pavilion Zero is created in the form of steps made of fir wood rafters, partially accessible on foot, which reproduce the schematic mapping of the contours adopted to design the reliefs of the terrain. The stratification reproduces the form of the land, with mountains and hills. The foliage of a tall tree, around 23 metres high, emerges from the ceiling, rising over the roof of the pavilion to emphasise the supremacy of Nature over human beings. Opening up at the centre is “The Valley of the Civilisations”, a large courtyard that hosts the Pangea table: a surface area of 80 m² made of Kauri, a thousand-year-old wood species coming from the subsoil of New Zealand, and composed of 19 shaped pieces supported by 271 legs made of Briccola, oak poles recovered from the lagoon in Venice. Pangea is inspired by and takes its name from the single continent that is though to have originally included all the land above water, which was divided up into the various continents during the subsequent geological ages.