Archinect - News

Watch the Grand Ring at Expo 2025 Osaka light up for the first time

2024-12-08T08:00:00-05:00

With the official opening of Expo 2025 Osaka just over five months away, organizers have shared a dramatic aerial video of its finally illuminated ring structure.

The wooden Grand Ring structure designed by Sou Fujimoto is equal to 1,969 feet (600 meters) in diameter, serving as the main circulatory route for the event and its participants from 161 different countries/regions. Festivities kick off on April 13th, 2025 and will end on October 13th.

More details about the structure are here.

Image from Expo 2025 Osaka via Youtube

WHY Architecture reveals Yoshimoto Pavilion for Expo 2025

2024-11-20T10:37:00-05:00

WHY Architecture has shared the first images of its design for the Yoshimoto Pavilion as part of the upcoming Expo 2025 Osaka, which takes place from April 13th to October 13th next year. The spherical waraii myraii (or 'a smiling future') design will host a cultural exchange based around a concept of "expanding new possibilities of laughter for a true 'Future Society For Our Lives.'" We recently featured the firm's current need for an experienced Project Architect in Culver City, CA in a roundup of domestic employment opportunities. WHY is also recently behind the Louvre's planned expansion of its Byzantine and Eastern Christian Art galleries for 2027.

Lina Ghotmeh announces design for Bahrain's National Pavilion at Expo Osaka 2025

2024-06-17T12:01:00-04:00

Lina Ghotmeh’s design for the official National Pavilion of the Kingdom of Bahrain for Expo 2025 Osaka has been revealed along with details of what she calls a “celebration of the bilateral relations” between the Gulf state and Expo’s host nation.

The Lebanese-born French architect’s follow-up to the 2023 Serpentine Pavilion in London offers a highlight of the Kingdom’s distinct maritime heritage and history as a major regional port of trade.

Image: © Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture

What hails as an artful reinterpretation of ancient Bahraini boat-building methods will take shape as a timber structure whose outermost shell is made out of aluminum. Open and porous, the design incorporates natural ventilation methods Its interiors are set to be provided by the award-winning Bahrain-based Shepherd Studio and center around a space dedicated to commerce and promoting the country’s “forward-looking” economy.

Image: © Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture

The pavilion will be realized within the “Empower...

Sou Fujimoto's wooden Grand Ring for Expo 2025 Osaka is taking shape

2024-05-15T12:42:00-04:00

The Sou Fujimoto-designed wooden Grand Ring roof for the upcoming Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan, is coming together just under a year before the fair officially opens to the public on April 13th, 2025.

As detailed in an earlier construction update, the structure will be realized at 1,969 feet (600 meters) in diameter and serve as the main circulatory route for visitors to access the exhibition’s 161 total participating countries and locations.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Expo2025 大阪・関西万博 (@expo2025japan)

A recent press announcement mentions: “With one year to go until Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai Japan welcomes the world to Osaka on 13 April 2025, Japan is ready to bring the international community together for six months of collaboration, creativity, innovation, wisdom, dialogue, and action. In an age where humanity is facing a myriad of unprecedented challenges, the need to unite and cooperate, to make genuine, positive, and sustainable change has never...

Sou Fujimoto shares new photos of Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai master plan under construction

2024-04-01T15:46:00-04:00

Sou Fujimoto’s studio has shared new construction images of the forthcoming Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai's The Grand Roof circular wooden container structure, a year ahead of the start of the six-month fair, which begins on April 13th, 2025.

The enormous structure is 1,969 feet (600 meters) in diameter and will serve as the main circulatory route for the exhibition, which includes 161 total participating countries/locations.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sou Fujimoto (@sou_fujimoto)

Fujimoto’s team says their design is meant to evoke a sense of "Unity in Diversity" and takes the Stage of Kiyomizu temple in Kyoto and other historic examples of Japanese timber architecture as its inspiration.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sou Fujimoto (@sou_fujimoto)

It will support an aerial walkway that affords visitors sightlines into the arena-like layout encased on the manmade Yumeshima island below and divided into three zones (Pavi...

Trahan Architects unveils U.S. pavilion design for Expo 2025 Osaka-Kansai

2024-02-08T15:06:00-05:00

Trahan Architects has unveiled its USA Pavilion design for World Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan. The county’s official entry will play host to a slate of exhibitions designed to showcase American scientific exploration and entrepreneurship and will be completed by an official project team that includes HOOD Design, Dot Dash, and several other specialty studios.

Chicago's former Mayor and the current U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, says it will stand as "an embodiment of American spirit." Organizers are expecting approximately 30 million visitors.

Visitors will pass through a ringed wall that surrounds the Expo before entering the pavilion, which is separated into two wings that are connected via a suspended cubic form serving as a skybridge.

Exterior LED screens installed on its facade will broadcast scenes of America’s urban and natural landscapes. The project reuses steel, HVAC systems, and tensile fabric used in structures o...

Coldefy and Carlo Ratti Associati unveil France’s pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka behind curtain facade

2024-01-12T14:46:00-05:00

A team comprising Coldefy and Carlo Ratti Associati has unveiled their design for France’s national pavilion at World Expo Osaka 2025.

Titled ‘Theatrum Naturae,’ meaning ‘Theatre of Nature,’ the pavilion is inspired by France’s natural landscapes, with a “looping narrative path” that suggests “new entanglements between humans and other forms of life in our cities.”

Image credit: Coldefy and Carlo Ratti Associati

The pavilion features a single pathway that guides visitors through three experiences: Ascent, Discovery of Nature, and Return to the Ground. The experience begins with a staircase that winds to form an observation balcony. The staircase weaves in and out of the pavilion’s porous curtain facade, offering views of the building’s interior before culminating at a heavily vegetated terrace.

Image credit: Coldefy and Carlo Ratti Associati

“The French Pavilion invites visitors to enter the theater of life,” said Coldefy founding partner Thomas Coldefy about the scheme. “Both actors...