Architect Gabriel Kozlowski has partnered with Gringo Cardia, Bárbara Graeff, and Tripper Arquitetura to design a structure of floating tree branches for the Brazil pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai. The pavilion is inspired by one of the greatest technological achievements of Brazil: the improvement of the Direct Planting System over a straw. The design conceptually mimics this scheme through its layered arrangement - soil, an entanglement of protection, productivity - presenting itself as both a building and a symbolic image.
Historically, the pavilion is mirrored in the rich Brazilian tradition at International Expos, subtly borrowing from the masterpieces of Paulo Mendes da Rocha at Osaka 1970 and from Sérgio Bernardes at Brussels 1958. The building explores the plastic potential of laminated timber as a structure - renewable material that sequesters carbon rather than releasing it - and of the rammed earth mixed with reinforced concrete - which lowers its energy of production and the absorption of heat. The pavilion produces its own energy, recycles its own water, and makes the use of air conditioning unnecessary by combining the constant flow of air through an open façade.
The ground floor is free and opens up under the protection of an inverted topography that floats above it. This continuous entrance pavement hosts the exhibition Together for Nature,which is organized around 6 walls, representing the 6 main Brazilian biomes. The walls are combined with the soils of each biome and surrounded by totems containing the seeds of their native species, narrating a tactile history of the foundations of Brazil through colors and textures. The ascent to the upper exhibitions takes place under an oculus that connects the ground floor directly to the sky. Inside a tangle of tree branches, visitors find the Together for People exhibit. Displayed on the inner facades, it showcases ethnic diversity with the faces of people and the sounds of indigenous villages.
After experiencing the textures of the seeds, the roughness of branches on the façade and the coldness of water, after diving into the sounds of Brazil's oldest villages and learning about the future of how Brazilians relate to water, visitors enjoy a viewing space and restaurant that crown the rooftop of the pavilion. In this pavilion there is no distinction between outside and inside, between building and exhibition, between sustainability and technology, all together form a single sensory-cognitive experience that describes the richness and progress of Brazil.
