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Expo Zaragoza 2008 is an international exhibition opening 14 June and closing 14 September, 2008, in Zaragoza, Spain. It takes water and sustainable development as subject matter, and its site is conveniently caught in a wide meander of the River Ebro, which is also part of the exhibition.
The exhibition is expected to accomplish three major goals: to increase awareness of access to water as a human right, to address the issue of water scarcity, and to foster the principles of best practices in water management.
The exhibition has been arranged into two levels including the public route, with a surface area of nearly 3,100 sq m, and the exhibits, covering about 2,700 sq m. The site is expected to draw over 10,000 visitors per hour.
There are many buildings in the site, but the truly outstanding structure is the Bridge Pavilion, an impressive and innovative pedestrian bridge that makes the site’s main entrance and hosts a display, “Water, A Unique Resource,” on the topic of water as a human right.
The bridge was built across the Ebro to a design by Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid, the first woman to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize. Her project was chosen among the 40 competition entries for its aesthetic qualities. Hadid herself considers her project as one of the most important she has worked on to date. The bridge looks like a handcrafted structure, since its modules are all different from one another.
The 270m-long bridge features a graceful, elongated steel structure. It connects the neighbourhood of La Almozara, where it is 5m wide, with the exposition site. It is adjusted in width, up to 30m as it approaches the left bank of the river, and it grows from 15 to 30m high.
The bridge features a single central support on a small island carrying almost one-third of the 7,000-tonne structure and two embankments that serve to anchor either end in the ground on both banks. The foundations lie on twenty-two piles, ten of which are located on the small central island, four on the right bank of the River Ebro, and eight on the left bank.
With a 6,475 sq m surface area, the pavilion rises obliquely along the River Ebro’s bed, resembling a gladiolus. Shark scales form a fascinating outer skin of glass-covered overlapping shingles that create a microclimate in the interior by means of a natural ventilation system where air flows through the porous enclosure covering the building.
The 400 square metres of glass used in the exterior surface were supplied by Vitro Cristalglass. The idea of creating a microclimate inside the bridge led to the use of solar control glass in order to minimise solar heat gain and of low-emission glass to inhibit energy transfer.
Additionally, the bridge’s interior lighting requirements decided the designers to use a ISOLAR® GLAS double glazing combination of SOLARLUX® Neutro 62 solar control glass, which looks transparent, and NEUTRALUX® low-emission glass.
ARCHITECT: Zaha Hadid
CLADDING SERVICE: Prince Cladding BV
CONSTRUCTION COMPANY: DRAGADOS – URSSA JOINT VENTURE
GLASS AREA: 402 sq m
TYPES OF GLASS: SOLARLUX® Neutro 62, NEUTRALUX®, TEMPRADO®
LOCATION: Expo Zaragoza site