The urgency architecture at Expo 2025 Osaka
At Expo 2025 Osakawhere nations converge to imagine the future, Pritzker price-Winning architect Shigeru Ban Bring an explanation of environmental awareness with the Blue Ocean Dome. This heart of the Osaka-Kansai pavilion is not just an individual Wood Structure, but a trio of interconnected CoupleA structural essay in sustainable materiality. With this project, the architect-known for its humanitarian architecture and pioneering work with non-traditional materials visitors reminds of this design, such as the ocean It honors, can be both liquid and powerful.
Shigeru Ban pavilion Accepts urgent topics: plastic sea pollution, the future of the marine industry and the oceanic climate awareness. At the same time, these are passive exhibits and active calls to action. Each dome in the Blue Ocean Dome complex becomes a spatial metaphor that is constructed with materials that speak directly to environmental problems that are like a triumphal virate of hope on the Yumeshima island.
The Blue Ocean Dome is the heart of the Osaka Kansai Pavilion of Expo | Image © Hiroyuki Hirai
Coupling laminated bamboo and carbon fiber
Shigeru Ban's vision for Expo 2025 Osaka Starts with dome A, which was completely made of laminated bamboo. Bamboo is more than an allusion to nature and is a material with serious architectural merits. It grows quickly, absorbs carbon and can be shaped into high -strength, light structures. In this warm, organic shell, the dome houses in a media zone and places the expoias into the programming in front of us with ocean motifs. Like that architect Looks it, sustainable design begins with the selection of the right materials – those that grow as quickly as the ideas they protect.
The concept escalates in dome B, a miracle of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP). This is Shigeru Ban's most experimental step that marks the world's first architectural dome that was made exclusively from CFRP. CFRP more than steel and lighter than aluminum and enables a span of over 40 meters with a spring weight. The web-like pattern of the structure causes both marine biology and aviation technology, which indicates a future in which ecological responsibility and high-tech performance coexist.
Three different domes are made of bamboo carbon fiber and paper pipes | Image © Hiroyuki Hirai
Shigeru Ban's paper tube final
The final of the Pavilion from Expo 2025 is available in dome C, which was built from paper tubes, Shigeru Ban's signature material. Although these tubes are modest, these tubes form in cooperation with Rengo Co., Ltd. Inside a slightly recyclable envelope, and this space travel acts as a live broadcast zone -a different kind of ship that transmits ideas across distances. Ban's long history with paper pipes, from emergency accommodation to cathedral vaults, is new relevance here: temporary but resilient, light and yet deeply effective.
The domes represent a design ecosystem. Developed in coordination with Zeri Japan And Blue Ocean ForumEach dome becomes a hub for dialogue, innovation and interdisciplinary exchange. By combining designers, scientists and entrepreneurs, the Blue Ocean Dome serves both as a stage and as a catalyst for ideas that go far beyond the pavilion walls.
The work is reminiscent of his earlier work for world exhibitions and disaster zones – spaces that have to adapt to uncertainties and at the same time enable clarity of the purpose. Whether due to the bamboo grid of dome A, the ultra -light CFRP cover of dome B or the tactile honesty of the paper tubes from dome C, Shigeru Ban's Pavilion is never neutral. It has the intention and in this case a rally scream to protect the oceans.
The domes deal with marine protection, sustainability and climate education Image © Hiroyuki Hirai
The paper pipe dome shows Ban's signature approach to recyclable architecture | Image © Hiroyuki Hirai
The bamboo dome uses a rapidly growing, renewable material Image © Hiroyuki Hirai