Smart solutions - United Arab Emirates

Smart solutions

Ap Verheggen

Designer Ap Verheggen & SunGlacier Technologies developed the solar-powered rain shower ‘SunGlacier’, a Dutch innovation that allows us to harvest hundreds of liters water at our pavilion every day.

The sustainable solar-powered water-from-air technology makes it possible in the future to produce food without being dependent on rainfall, rivers or other traditional water sources. The ‘SunGlacier’ technology extracts hundreds of litres of water daily from the desert air. The water was purified using a distinctive, innovative method.

Buro Belen

Buro BELÉN has designed a curtain to separate the business lounge from the visitors’ area. This 26-metre-wide and 12-metre-long custom piece is made of bio textiles. The PLA yarn was developed specially by BELÉN in collaboration with its partners and is industrially biodegradable.

Marjan van Aubel

The stained glass solar cell skylights have a double purpose. Besides providing energy these unique skylights also allow sunlight to enter the pavilion so that the water-cultivated vegetables in the biotope can grow thanks to the natural process of photosynthesis.

Peter Oei

An important part of the pavilion’s biotope are the oyster mushrooms on the inside of the vertical farm. The healthy CO2 they produce supported the growth of the plants on the outside of the vertical farm.

In the white silos in the business lounge, a real mushroom nursery had been set up, to make mycelium and to pre-grow the oyster mushrooms. A simple but delicate system was devised by Peter Oei of SIGN, using as little water and energy as possible, compared to other methods. Straw pellets are treated with hot water in a mixer, cooled, then spawned and placed in special bags for a 3-week growth of the mycelium.

After that, the mushrooms start to grow. During Expo, hundreds of kilos of oyster mushrooms were produced using this system.