The Expo-Lobby

Elena Zubareva (Year: 2)

My project inserts the multifunctional show-case expo between the towers of CityLife Milan and the ground that contains the archeological traces combined with the current projects and the future visions. This project attempts to “mediate” between the cultural legacy of the Milan Expo, and the installation of new business hub, CityLife, on the same ‘transitional’ site. I am proposing to create a new ‘transitional’ space between the ground (local) and the tower (global) – as a new “Showcase Lobby”. The design proposition deliberately re-activates the site legacy – as a flexible field of re-programmable spaces as well as architectural installations. The discrete pavilions and lobbies-in-the-lobbies all merge the traces from the past with the future scenarios, and offer both cultural and commercial spaces. The contents of pavilions include the contentions over the displace or yet-to-built housing developments, reframing the historical fragments in new contexts, and suggestions of the use of the cutting edge project that could be found elsewhere in the world.