The UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office has described their £13.2m Shanghai World Expo 2010 Pavilion as "a dramatic demonstration of creativity and innovation in the UK."

Its designer, Brit Thomas Heatherwick, likes to refer to his creation as the "world's largest hairy building." The reason for that is the pavilion's exterior: 60,000 transparent acrylic filaments that extended 8 m (26 ft) out from the plywood cube at the center and blew gently in the wind. He's also likened it to a "seed cathedral," thanks to the fact that each of those huge 'hairs' held a seed from London's Kew Garden's seed bank; a detail designed to highlight the fragility of the world's ecosystem. These seeds and their respective hairs were sold through an online auction after the completion of the Expo, when the pavilion was disassembled.

A deliberately low-tech endeavor—the inside of the building was barely 150 sq m (179 sq yd), and unlike many of the others featured neither an interactive film nor any special theme music—the building nevertheless created a lasting impression thanks to the effect of weather and light on those hairy filaments. As clouds moved across the sky, the inside of the pavilion darkened; and when the sun reemerged the filaments lit up the seeds captured within.

Thought was also given to the surrounding landscape as the pavilion took up only a fraction of the UK's 6,000 sq m (7,176 sq yd) allotment, with the Seed Cathedral sitting on what looked like wrapping paper, signifying the UK's "gift" to China. A series of walkways beneath the "paper" took visitors on a journey through UK history. What remains of the site will be part of a planned mixed-use development including the  pavilions of Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Italy.

More on the UK Pavilion from Chinatravel:

UK's Shanghai Expo pavilion: sustainability metaphor or plastic monstrosity?

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