I have to pause here and thank both Harvey Mudd College and my wonderful Disneyland-loving friends for preparing me for Expo. If there is one life skill that HMC endowed me with above all others it is the ability to perform at or near my full potential on only a few hours of sleep and to repeat this feat ad nauseum if necessary. And for my friends, everyone told me that I should just get an evening pass to Expo (only $1 cheaper than a full day student ticket) because the crowds are smaller in the evening and I wouldn’t want to be walking around from 9:30 am until 10:30 pm. But little did they know that because of the Disney zealots in my circle of friends, I have been fully prepared for such days having spent 8 am to 1 am at Disneyland. So again, thank you to both groups for enabling me to make the most out of my Expo weekend.
At this point, I could continue the narrative and take you all through a pavilion-by-pavilion walkthrough of my day and my impressions of each as they pertain to sustainable cities, but considering the number of pavilions I visited, I think I will spare everyone the hours of reading required and instead give some general thoughts. For those interested in specific pavilions (or all of them) I am putting together a document with notes and thoughts on each for my own use that I will make available online when it is finished (which won’t be until after I get to Expo for one more day, so not until October or later).
What first shocked me was the sheer number of people in line at 7:30 in the morning for Expo. I had been told that you have to arrive early to get to some of the more visited pavilions, and given that Expo Park doesn’t open until 9 I thought that 7:30 might be early enough. Well, it turns out that serious Expo fans arrive around 4:30 and sit, sleep, or stand for the 5 hours until the pavilions start admitting visitors. This is because to get a reservation ticket to the China Pavilion (the only way to get in) you must be at the front of the line. So for an hour and a half, I found myself in a basement packed with visitors all waiting for the floodgates to open.
And I choose my wording carefully there because when the park finally did open, a torrent of people rushed through, fanning out across the park. Many ran, many walked, and a few dawdled about awed by the massive scale of the pavilions around them, but the result was as if a sea of people had been unleashed on already wet ground. As it turns out, for all of my scheming and planning, the crowds which all of September had been around 250,000 surged on this day to 450,000, resulting in the torrent I describe. Hurriedly walking and trying to orient myself on the map, before I knew it I found myself trapped in the line for the Saudi Arabia pavilion which before 9:30 in the morning already stretched more than 5 hours long. Quickly exiting, I decided to spend my day in shorter lines. This was not the first time I saw lines so long—throughout my weekend Germany, Coca-Coil, the Oil Companies, and GM/SAIC all had lines of over 4 hours. Even Cisco at one point was listed as greater than 4 hours, though that was a complete lie—it was only 45 minutes (I know because I was in it).
So those were my first impressions of Expo. Now for the pavilions. I spent most of my first day in the Theme Pavilions, which are meant to depict the idea of Better City Better Life, and in the Urban Best Practices Area, a showcase of excellent city strategies from around the world for creating better cities. I have to say I was impressed with the displays I witnessed here. The Theme Pavilions provided an educational experience about ideas ranging from environmental impact to the concept of an ideal city. From my architecture classes, I recognized depictions of Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City, Le Corbusier’s utopian visions, Da Vinci’s ideal water city, and others. The displays did a good job of pulling key points from each that still offer hope and promise for the future—easy transport, mixed use structures, low energy consumption, freedom from pollution, and open, natural space to name a few. Combining these ideal visions with lessons from the other Theme Pavilions about what we have done to the environment (a few pictures of the displays are below) both portrayed a sobering picture of human environmental impacts and planted the seeds of hope that things can change.
A classical city display showing daily life in Rome or Greece.
A room made of common materials, in this case doors. The theme was showing what actually makes up the city, so houses of cardboard, plastic, and other objects were constructed.
Taps comparing the amount of water used by different countries per capita.
The pavilions sought to educate visitors about the methods by which we can reduce our environmental impact and sprinkled informative displays about new technologies around artsy centerpieces designed to inform visitors of the magnitude of our impacts. Interspersed with all of these were little easy tips on how you can save the earth. I know that some political scientists will shudder at the thought that Expo, a showcase on how to create a better city, would purport that the keys to sustainable cities lie in individual action. Certainly it is true that the Theme Pavilions of Expo neglected the role of laws and change at higher levels which in reality are needed for truly sustainable future cities to be achieved. Yet despite this failure, a combination of facts leaves me hopeful that Expo really can have an impact going forward in China. First, in general the level of awareness of issues of environment and sustainability is low in China. People are acutely aware of those issues which impact them on a daily basis—air pollution and water pollution—but don’t understand the causes. There is a lack of understanding about how to close the loop, what causes pollution and what drives those causes. Citizens here act when they can see a direct benefit to their health or the health of their families, and by teaching about the role of clean energy in preventing illness and death and the impact that can be obtained by minimizing driving, the level of awareness increases and the possibility for solutions at the individual, corporate, and even government levels grows.
Second, raising this level of awareness and education is critical in China for action to be taken from the government level. The government here is driven by a desire to increase its influence and share of the global marketplace and a desire to maintain control over the population at the national level. Change from within is possible here if the government senses enough interest in a topic that failure to act could cause political unrest. The people by and large expect the government to take care of them in matters of social welfare and health, and if enough realize that coal power and inefficient systems are causing a decline in the overall health of their families, then it could lead to action. Let me pause though and say that it is still a long way before health and safety issues driven by climate change are at the forefront of citizens’ minds. So here, pressing renewable energy is much more plausible from an air pollution, mining destruction, and water pollution standpoint. These are issues people are beginning to see and care about and issues on which the government is beginning to be forced to take action, though it is a tight line to walk to balance pollution and development.
The last reason I am hopeful is that the displays were truly inspiring and thought-provoking. Even the artsy pieces did make you stop and think about what the Earth is beginning to look like and what cities of the future could look like. They integrated new technologies, cool ideas, and fun demonstrations to show how life could be powered on renewable energy, how we can integrate nature effectively into the city, and what could happen should we fail to accept the challenge of moving toward a more sustainable future. I have long felt that presenting these concepts in a manner that pushes visitors to think and imagine what is possible in an environment that makes it seem cool and fun to be interested in science, and in this case sustainability, is a good way to create the next generation of leaders in the field. For instance, I wonder how many future scientists were influenced to that career path after experiencing Tomorrowland at Disneyland in the 1950s and 1960s, where the future was cool and fun to be a part of. Maybe Expo has the same effect with its movies and displays—encourage people to think about what they can do, and hope enough of them realize the scale at which they must act to effect real change.
These concepts keep me hopeful that Expo can have an impact in China. However, simultaneously I am not optimistic after having spent time there and interacted with other visitors and the space of Expo Park. One of the first things to deflate my optimism is the fact that I may have been the only person out of the 450,000 at Expo last Saturday reading the signs and displays. A vast majority of visitors seemed interested only in looking for a brief moment at the displays that were visually interesting en route to the interactive exhibits, spots to hold up the peace sign and snap a quick photo, and ultimately, the Expo Passport stamp desk. This last destination is a hallmark of Expos worldwide where visitors can pay for a passport and then have it stamped at each pavilion to commemorate their visit. Yet for many in the park, it seemed not like a fun memory collection but rather a goal—get through the pavilion, get to the stamp, and get in the next line to get more stamps—gotta catch ‘em all! So the question was raised in my mind of how much these creative, thought-provoking displays actually impacted the visitors? Some pavilions tried to hold their viewers captive and force them to watch a movie about the topic, but some visitors still slipped right through the theater and avoided the movie all together (a minority, but still some).
My second pessimistic point is the mere distribution of visitors. By the time I arrive in the Urban Best Practices Area, it was all but deserted. I walked through pavilion after pavilion documenting innovative city strategies for increasing social and cultural activities, reducing environmental impacts, and demonstrating innovative technologies without waiting in any lines, and in some pavilions without meeting another visitor. Now to be fair, many people were already heading home for the day, but it was still absolutely deserted in this area which arguably best epitomizes the theme of Expo. The fact that it is tucked away in a corner far from anything else doesn’t help increase visitorship—the organizers of Expo perhaps didn’t think that the paragon of their theme was important to showcase front and center or didn’t realize the role of placement in visitorship. Or maybe they just wanted all of the countries to be near one another, which meant being near China which of course is prominent as you walk in. And though you may say that there is hope when Cisco, Oil, and GM/SAIC have the longest lines, in reality this is because of the 4-D 360o viewing experiences and cool demonstrations involved. While I’m sure some people walk away from this with the intended message of the films and experiences, others may be wowed merely by the technology and miss the message of the pavilion. I’d like to think that on some level these viewers are left with the message of the pavilion, but when you ask others which pavilions to visit, they almost inevitably highlight the coolest technologies and displays and not the substance or content.
Even the theme pavilions were fairly empty when I visited. On a day when lines stretched up to 6 hours for other displays and 450,000 were packed into Expo Park, at the peak hours of the day I was able to walk into the theme pavilions uninhibited or at most forced to wait for 15 minutes in a line. Compared to the waits for smaller country pavilions, these times were minimal.
The last observation that made me unhopeful for the future impact of Expo was perhaps the most disheartening. Walking around among the pavilions, the only indication I found of implementing the theme of “Better City, Better Life” in the Expo grounds was a proclamation in the men’s room stating that the paper towels were made from recycled paper, thus drastically reducing the number of virgin trees cut to enable people wiping their wet hands. Now, I know that some of the pavilions are quite advanced in their environmental technologies—Canada for instance collects rainwater through the wooden slats of the building skin and Ireland uses a double skin façade. Even the main Expo walk uses large decorative funnels to help naturally cool the basement areas, thus reducing the need for air conditioning, and all of the pavilions are cooled by Broad’s non-electric air conditioning technology. Yet none of this is mentioned or displayed anywhere visible to the casual observer. In fact, even if you look for information on the pavilions, there is none to be found (I tried). As an architect I met with confirmed, he wouldn’t have known about some of the innovative sustainable features of the pavilions had he not received a private tour. So here, in Expo Park, is the perfect opportunity to exemplify sustainable buildings, put them on display for the world to see, and mandate that the Expo itself be a microcosm of a global “Better City” with a “Better Life” and the opportunity is completely lost. Where new technologies are in place in the Park, they are kept hidden from the visitors, even those seeking them out. Yes it’s true that the pavilions themselves showcase some technologies within, but they ignore the buildings housing them and leave the untrained eye to regard them not as a work of sustainability but one of architecture only.
Canada's wooden-clad pavilion.
The Ireland Pavilion with it's grass wall and double-skin facade.
The funnels for helping with natural ventilation in the basement levels of Expo walk
After my visit, I was thus left with the dilemma of what impact the Expo will really have on its visitors. At once it is inspiring and hopeful while simultaneously failing to take full advantage of its position on a national and global stage to showcase itself as the future of our cities. The optimist in me hopes that the Expo will yet serve for China as the proving grounds for technologies like non-electric air conditioning, solar power, and passive design, but the pessimist thinks that unless the government is taking significantly more notice of these technologies than the average visitors, such ideas are likely to fly under their radar. It will remain to be seen what lessons China, and the world, take from Expo 2010. I want to leave with one final though, however, on sustainability at Expo, and that is this: how “sustainable” can the Expo truly be when all of the buildings save five will be torn down after only 6 months of operation? Is there a better way to reintegrate these structures into an example of a “better city” and a “better life”?
No comments:
Post a Comment