The Singapore Pavilion in “World Expo”, organised by the Singapore Tourism Board and hosted in Aichi, Japan was a bold statement and a resounding success.
Interpretive Design Consultancy, Experiential Design
“The Singapore Pavilion in World hosted in Japan was one of the most successful events STB ever staged overseas.”
The total visitors count of 15M far exceeded a target of 10M in 6 months.
We engaged the audience in a direct way. Staged like a back-stage, audience interacted with artistes from various cultures while they go through their preparation routines.
There was no pretence of cultural amalgamation; rather, modernity and tradition co-exist just as multi-culturalism does in our society. This is sometimes jarring, like the bamboo stilts that pierced through the contemporary stage, and sometimes graphic, like the storey-high cosmetic-counter light-boxes that kept hundreds of medicine and spices.
But at the end of the day, it was the face-to-face interaction that gave our pavilion the human touch that was lacking in many others.
In response to the theme “Nature’s Wisdom”, the designers seek to project Singapore as a real, yet alluring habitat. The design broke away from conventional stereotypes of STB road shows in a contemporary and edgy fashion. The pavilion was presented in 3 cross-sections and interaction modes.
This section presents the physical environment we are in: a man-made wonder that is ever so vulnerable to its environment. Audience becomes part of the light and sound show by standing under pouring rain within a concrete and glass park while watching a curved large projection wall.
This is a jagged, 3 storey-high library that hosted memories of Singaporeans in the form of small artefacts in book casings.
Audiences are left alone to interact, by exploring and picking a slice of this Singaporean memory, audiences discovered that our society is no different from any others; in the way it is human.
Project Information
Creative Director: Glen Goei
Design Team: Randy Chan, Paul Chang, Tan Cher Suen
Project Management:Design Act