Designed for the Zaragoza Expo 2008, the pavilion is a flexible and multifunctional space.
What was office space for tourism during the event in 2008 now houses a cafe and an info-box on the Milla Digital project. The challenge was to use water – the theme of Expo 2008 – as an architectural element. The walls are composed of digitally controlled water droplets, which can generate writing or patterns or access to spaces.
The result is a space that is interactive and reconfigurable in that each wall can potentially become an entrance or exit, while the internal partitions can shift depending on the number of people present. The only material elements are the two boxes and the roof, which is a sort of curtain that can move vertically and flatten to the ground, removing the presence of the entire pavilion.
CREDITS carlorattiassociati | walter nicolino & carlo ratti Team: Carlo Ratti, Matteo Lai, Walter Nicolino, Chiara Morandini. Consultants: Interactive water wall concept: MIT Media Laboratory / Smart Cities Group, director: William J. Mitchell, Boston; Engineering: Arup, Madrid; Landscape architecture: Agence Ter, Paris; Graphic design: Studio FM, Milan; Lead contractor: Siemens, Madrid