With just a few days to go before the opening of Expo Milano 2015 (at Rho Fiera Milano from 1 May to 31 October), the Swiss Pavilion ConFOODeratio Helvetica is among the first pavilions ready and waiting to receive visitors.
Water and safeguarding water as an essential element to human life represent some of the key themes of the pavilion (and of Expo itself). The pavilion was designed by Netwerch, a Swiss firm of architects, and engineered, as far as the water is concerned, by Geberit.
Geberit's hi-tech solutions offer smart, waste-free management of the pavilion's resources, and involve all the water supply and drainage systems, the installation systems for the toilet facilities, the touch-free taps in the bathrooms and the latest-generation WC-bidet Geberit AquaClean.
"Expo's theme of Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life is especially close to our company's concerns," explained Giorgio Castiglioni, General Director of Geberit Italia. "Water, as a key element in the nutrition of mankind and the land we live on, is in fact our core business. Saving, protecting and conveying water as efficiently as possible, is the mission of each of our products."
The Swiss Pavilion:
"Confooderatio Helvetica" covers an area of 4,432 square metres and consists of four towers stocked with food products available to visitors, dedicated to the subjects of water, salt, coffee and apples.
Why?
Water, which you could say is Switzerland's key resource, is the most precious element there is for human life and the survival of the planet's eco-systems.
Salt - in which Switzerland's subsoil is rich - plays the bad guy in an exhibition focusing on the need to reduce our salt consumption so as to improve our health.
Coffee - which Switzerland now exports more of than chocolate and cheese - was chosen to illustrate the public and private sectors' capacity for innovation and engagement in terms of sustainability of the supply chain: from plant to cup.
Dried apples, meanwhile, represent biodiversity, the capacity for diversification, and the fundamental role of agriculture in safeguarding the landscape, as well as being emblematic of a healthy, natural diet.
The towers are designed in such a way that as visitors gradually eat their way through the products, the structure of the pavilion will change, because the more these products are consumed, the lower the platforms on which the pavilion stands will drop: the idea is that this will prompt visitors to reflect on the influence that their own lifestyles have on the environment.
At the end of Expo 2015, 75% of the material used in the Swiss Pavilion will be recovered, and the towers will be re-used as urban greenhouses in 4 different cities across Switzerland.
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