Glowing UK Pavilion At The 2010 Shanghai Expo

This funky design from British designer, Thomas Heatherwick will be the new UK pavilion at the Shanghai Expo in 2010.  The pavilion will be used as a seed bank with the largest collection of wild seeds in the world courtesy of the Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank partnership.

The unique building glows due to thousands of 7.5 meter fiber optic filaments which transport interior light to the face of the structure.  At night, these rods will illuminate the whole pavilion and hopefully create a great public venue for events.  At the end of each transparent rod, tens of thousands of seeds will be encased and visitors can view examples of the plant species that help global conservation programs.  The construction on the pavilion began appropriately on March 12th, which is China’s annual national tree planting day.

[via dezeen]