Expo Pavilions | Projects

Expo Pavilions into School

As part of our plan to accelerate the greening of Chinese consumer behavior, we chose the YK Pao School in Shanghai to be our “Green School Showcase.” Using materials from pavilions at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, we built a brand new campus for the YK Pao School.

How We Went About Inspiring A Circular Economy in China

"REUSE is often ignored in favor of its siblings, REDUCE and RECYCLE. With the dismantling of the Expo Pavilions and the building of the YK Pao secondary school, this is a historic opportunity for us to showcase a practical and mutually beneficial way to reuse our Earth's precious resources."

We Connected the Top Sustainability Experts Together

We stepped in to help YK Pao and selected them to be our “Green School Showcase”, as part of our plan to demonstrate the concept of reusing building materials in China. In April 2009, we put YK Pao in contact with personnel at Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB), a leading construction management firm in the sustainable schools sector. PB provided sustainable design and planning advice to YK Pao, and in turn the school hired PB as their Project and Construction Manager for their secondary school campus construction.

In January 2010, Richard Brubaker, professor of sustainability at China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), and several of his students spoke about their project to explore systematically reusing Expo building materials. One of those students, John Timms, later connected with Green Ideas, Green Actions (GIGA) and moved the project into the next stage. Their aim was to use reclaimed Expo materials as a highly visible example to jumpstart large-scale reuse initiatives in China. In June 2010, we connected Richard and his students with

the YK Pao construction team so that the project could

move forward.

After

the Expo ended

in October 2010,

work commenced on

deconstructing the site and

transporting much of the pavilion

materials to the construction site for

YK Pao. However, we ran into some difficulty

when we had to deal with lower layers of

management.

As the energy that had

buoyed support

during the Expo

disappeared, there remained little incentive for

lower level management to preserve residual materials.

In some cases, last minute complications with the safety and quality of the gifted materials forced our team to swap or abandon equipment. Nevertheless, we had all of the materials removed, packed up, transported and then reused in the construction of the new campus. In total, over 300 items of 50 different types were donated by participant pavilions to begin a new chapter at YK Pao School, with materials being used to build staircases, flooring, signage, and doors.

Creating A Symbol of Reuse

The secondary school opened in Fall 2011 in Shanghai's Songjiang district. A permanent reminder of this project was built into the school, and the case will serve to educate YK Pao students on the importance of working together to save the environment. The sustainability spirit of Shanghai Expo 2010 was seeded everywhere across the school’s 40,000 square meters of space - in classrooms, dormitories, the library, offices, and outdoor garden areas. It stands as a physical demonstration of reuse for all YK Pao students.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the following organizations and people for their invaluable help and support in making this project a reality:

The following pavilions at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai: Cyprus, London ZED, Cisco, New Zealand, Swiss Cities, India Pondicherry, UK, Portugal, and Alsace Pavilions.
The YK Pao School.
Green Ideas, Green Actions (GIGA) and the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)
Professor Richard Brubaker and his students: John Timms, Denise Chao, Alan Ding, Ming Liu, Sachin Kulkarni, and Catherine Xuan.
The following companies: Ruder Finn, Parsons Brinckerhoff, S.H.E., ID Creations, Charlie Xia Photography.