CONTEXT: The design for the Croatian Pavilion for the 2020 World Expo in Dubai was judged runner-up in the national design competition. Croatian architecture firm Studio Putinja (based in Pazin, Croatia) invited Studio Memo to collaborate on the interior design: an ephemeral pneumatic landscape where walls, ceiling and furniture merge in a continuum of abstract, flowing form.
The concept of Croatia: Beyond Limits aims to connect cultural cornerstones from each of Croatia’s regions and to present these trough a design with an ambiguous transition between its exterior and interior. This is displayed through the use of contrasting materials and a green façade, as well as a rectilinear external grid and free-flowing interior landscape.
The pneumatic interior landscape is bright, vibrant and dream-like. Its playfulness invites informal meetings. On a technical level, the translucent white membrane is divided in sections: some of which are exposed to a positive pressure (to create convex surfaces) while others are under a negative pressure (to create concave surfaces).