Expo, Milan, Italy, 2011. Pavilion:
Today, humanity has at its disposal knowledge and technologies that were unthinkable just a few decades ago, tools that can open up new horizons for sustainable growth. We issue an ethical, technological and scientific challenge to the visitor: to find and share a new vision of tomorrow.
The pavilion proposes a material and conceptual journey in three moments: the duality of contemporaneity, possible change and virtuous practices. These three moments are realised in three paths: the linear path, where a treadmill transports us through the contradictions and risks of our weak and quarrelsome oil-drugged humanity; the upward spiral, where we move through the changes leading to a different and sustainable development; and the downward spiral, where we go through our concrete examples and virtuous practices.
At the apex of the pavilion is a huge block of ice, symbolising the summit and the place of meditation, dispenser of water and life. At the base of the spirals is the kitchen-forge: the fire that transforms, the focus of conviviality and joy, the forge of ideas.
The pavilion is built with prefabricated modules of wood and technical textiles; 0.62 is the coefficient of the pavilion spaces, like the ratio between the number of calories available to a third world inhabitant and those available to us pavilion visitors. Water is the symbol of the geographical and cultural continuity between Italy and Switzerland.