FBlog

I was lucky enough to lead the team from Futurebrand, who won the opportunity to design and develop the ‘2012 Legacy corner’ as part of Thomas Heatherwick’s UK Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010, which officially opened last Saturday.

Let me start by giving you a bit of background behind the design and what went into it.

The Pavilion itself represents an unwrapped present, given to the Chinese people by the British Nation. The ‘seed cathedral’ is the present, which sits on a ‘wrinkled’ concrete plinth with four upturned corners, which is the wrapping paper.

The space under each upturned corner of the Pavillion tells a different story and FutureBrand has created the narrative for the 4^th corner. Concentrating on the positive impact of London hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the design takes us through the story of the site both during and after the event, with a focus on the legacy left after the games. This major piece of sustainable planning will transform the area into a new urban green space and give an overlooked part of London a new park for future generations to enjoy post Games.

I am a sports nut, so It has always been one of my ambitions to get to work, in some capacity, on an Olympic games. I am therefore honoured to be working on the brand look and feel for the 2012 games, which goes live over the next 2 years. However coming up with something that is live now and communicates the power of the project in China is particularly exciting.

The story is based around the positive impact of staging the Games in an industrial and historically deprived part of London.  It is told over three illuminated panels and encapsulates the overall theme of the Expo, ‘Better City, Better Life’.

The first panel shows the location of the Olympic park. Panel 2 shows the Olympic park in detail with the permanent buildings picked out in the foreground and the temporary buildings highlighted in the background. Panel 3 illustrates the legacy left after the Games and shows the newly restored rivers, cleansed parkland and buildings.

This great British success story is displayed against a backdrop of a deconstructed 3-dimensional Union Jack flag in the colours red, white and blue. This is back illuminated and designed to draw the visitors attention to a pivotal moment in time.

I have included the visuals of the corner and some of the ‘in progress’ photos of the shard shapes that form the supporting structure for the displays.

These were built in the UK by Mike Smith Studios, then shipped out to Shanghai and fitted by a local team.

Next week I go back to Shanghai to help install the three story panels that have unfortunately been stuck at Heathrow for the last few weeks, due to the fall-out from the Icelandic Volcano.

Thankfully, they have now arrived safely and passed through the very stringent Chinese customs process!

So, when I am back, I will post the photos of the finished corner.

Watch this space…..