Politics

Green Flora Expo pavilion inaugurated

• Publication Date：04/08/2010
• Source： United Daily News

The first building in the world to be made entirely from recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles was unveiled to the public April 7.

Called the Pavilion of New Fashion, the building was designed and built expressly for the upcoming 2010 Taipei International Flora Expo, which runs from Nov. 6, 2010, to April 25, 2011.

Costing NT$300 million (US$9.48 million) and measuring 3,200 square meters in size, the environmentally friendly structure can be taken apart and reassembled multiple times.

Douglas Hsu, chairman of the Far Eastern Group, which sponsored the construction of the pavilion, said the company began recycling PET bottles from around the country two years ago when it agreed to undertake the project.

“Every year the residents of Taiwan generate 200 million used PET bottles, but only 4 percent of them are recycled and reused,” Hsu said. “It is a terrible waste to see them thrown away as trash.”

The building was designed by Arthur Huang, a 29-year-old graduate of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, who noted that its walls work like Lego pieces.

“The size of a single wall is just big enough to be taken apart and placed onto removal vans,” Huang said. “When the exposition is over, the walls can be taken down and used again at a later date without any damage.”

The architect added that the pavilion is not only the lightest building for one of its size in the world, but also the sturdiest. Having passed natural disaster-resistance tests, it is able to withstand hurricane-strength winds and 8.0-magnitude earthquakes.

The pavilion is environmentally friendly when it comes to its power system as well. Solar panels have been installed on its roofs; but thanks to the high transparency level of the PET bricks, electricity will hardly be necessary during daytime: sunshine itself will provide enough light.

The bricks, filled with air within, also help insulate the building from the hot weather outside. One wall is covered entirely by a waterfall, which will act like an air conditioner in helping circulation. The inside of the building will be between three to six degrees Celsius cooler than the temperature outside during the summer time. (TYH-HZW)