If your planning to go to Shanghai this year there are over 200 new buildings in Shanghai for the World Expo 2010, a collaboration of architecture from countries all over the world. With the theme being "Better City, Better Life". While in Shanghai one Museum not to be missed is the Urban Planning Exhibition Center, also known as the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum. A museum of the "Master Plan" for Shanghai and includes an exhibition on "the Greening of Shanghai".
The Museum, completed in 2000 and designed by Ling
Benli of ECADI, is a striking, modern six -story building made of micro-lite glass at the eastern end of People's Square. The highlight and centerpiece is on the third floor. A vast model spanning the entire floor of what Shanghai is to be in 2020. Patches of green amongst endless skyscrapers. Clear plastic models indicate structures yet to be built.
The exhibition includes the Green Plan for Shanghai which is also the theme for the World Expo 2010. Eco Singapore's COOL IT blog did a nice job of bullet points of exactly what this entails:
*World’s largest “eco-wall”: A vast expanse of rooftop solar power panels feeding electricity to pavilions within the Expo
*A zero-carbon hall which uses solar and wind power and which also houses a “zero-carbon” restaurant that converts food waste into fuel and which uses the nearby Huangpu River as a heat sink to moderate the temperature within the hall (although this may have severe consequences if water is pumped back into the river after cooling the hall, and has the potential to alter the river ecosystem and marine life)
*Over 1000 clean energy vehicles powered by fuel cells or electricity. These include buses and cars that will transport visitors around the site. This, coupled with the encouragement of walking around the park instead of taking public transport, is expected to save 10,000 tonnes of fuel and cut greenhouse gas emissions by about 28,400 tonnes.
*Shanghai boasts China’s largest 5MW solar power system which can power up to 80% of the Expo’s lighting (but whether it does, and will… is yet to be seen)
*The shutdown of 3000 factories to clean up the city’s severe air pollution
*The development of 4 parks to act as the city’s “green lungs”
*“Green” theme of the Expo has seen some pavilions such as Japan’s purple silk worn installing flexible solar cells to power operations. In addition, Switzerland’s pavilion has a rooftop alpine meadow made from biodegradable materials like soybean.
The World Expo's main concept of the "Green Guideline" is "to carry forward the concept of ecological advancement, provide relevant suggestions and guidance to visitors, participants and operators in terms of ideological progress, standard of behavior and management supervision, take into full play the joint efforts of the entire society, promote Expo 2010 Shanghai China to be an environment-friendly and resource-saving “Green Expo”, and develop the theme of “Better City, Better Life”.
Get a 360 degree impression as a video takes the viewer flying through Shanghai in the future. Maybe as if you were magnetically levitating on a magic carpet as is proposed on the forth floor where future transportation is displayed; including magnetic levitation, subway and light rail trains.
Take a look at The 2010 World Expo in Shanghai and some featured Pavilions in previous post .
