Pascal Berger, one of architects working on the the Germany Pavilion. Photo: Li Yuting

By Li Yuting

The Germany Pavilion sits on Pascal Berger's desk. The white model of Germany's contribution to the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai serves as a kind of conversational anchor for Berger as he routinely jumps from his seat to return to it while he explained the pavilion's structure, layout, and design to the Global Times.

Berger's company, Playze, an architectural firm with branches in Shanghai, Switzerland and Berlin, Germany, was selected to be the local architect of the Germany Pavilion.

Berger said that one has to walk through the pavilion to fully appreciate its design as it may not be apparent from the outside. "This experience is created with the architecture, not… with decoration or any exhibition pieces, but just with the space," he said.

Born in Basel, Switzerland, in 1978, Berger received a master's degree in architecture from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich). He was a founding partner of Playze in Switzerland and went on to open a branch of the company in Shanghai, where he has lived for five years.

Schmidhuber & Kaindl, the Munich-based architectural firm had won the initial contract to design the pavilion, but the company had never built anything in China, so they wanted to bring in a partner with building experience in China.

One of firm's partners was an old friend of one of Berger's partners. The Munich company got in touch with Playze and visited their Shanghai branch, called He Playze China, and eventually chose Playze after visiting several other firms. Although the company was only 3 years old, it was buoyed by the fact that it had an office in Germany, Berger said.

Because the job was locally focused, Playze dealt with the local Shanghai Xiandai Engineering Consultants Co. Ltd. For one and a half years, they held weekly meetings every Monday morning. Berger joked that it was a bad way to start the week. He visited the pavilion's construction site at least twice a week to see how it was coming along, to check everything and to discuss problems with their local partner. Berger acknowledged that building such a complicated structure was accompanied by a great number of problems. It was their job to solve them.

When the subject turned to the silver membrane that covers the Germany Pavilion, Berger immediately turned to a shelf and took out a sheet of silver coated PVC membrane. He pointed out that the pavilion was a temporary building that will be demolished in half a year. "We have tried to use light materials that can be recycled, and if it is light, you can take it away and use it again," he said.

"The second idea is to make it like an umbrella," he added. "When you walk around in summer, it's too hot and you don't want to be exposed to the sun, then you will use the umbrella, and we do the same with the building."

The silver reflects the sunlight, which reduces how much heat the building absorbs, cutting its energy consumption and air conditioning costs.

The Germany Pavilion. Photo: IC

Working on an Expo pavilion turned out to be a great opportunity for Berger and his company. The publicity from the project raised their profile and increased their network of contacts. "Chinese client are interested in collaborating with people who are involved in the Expo. So it's a good (opportunity) for us," he said.

The Germany Pavilion is called Balancity, representing the pavilion's theme of balance at the University of Hong Kong's Shanghai Center. Berger described his teaching job as a way to balance his own career. Since 2009, Berger has taught design as the honorary assistant professor for four hours an evening twice a week. The students are architecture majors from the university who have opted to spend one semester in Shanghai in either their second or the third years.

"My designing job is a very busy one, and it's not only designing, which is the fun part," he said. "I find very little time to really sit down, design, or think about concepts at the beginning stage. What's more, the whole process of building is very stressful with all the problems and difficulties along the way. It is very nice to step out and go to the university to work with students who are very open-minded and creative."

Berger believes that the teaching job provides him with an excellent way to better understand Shanghai. Each semester, he tries to focus on different projects related to city planning.

After researching the different types of housing in Shanghai, from the low-end shikumen/nongtang to high-end skyscrapers, Berger and his students learned a lot about the basic culture of living in Shanghai, which is very different from European cities. Berger said the architecture shows a different cultural mindset.

"Take shikumen for example, I am very clear that there are lots of Shiku-men of poor quality that are really not worth keeping or renovating," he said. However, the shared public space does impress him, and stands in contrast to typical apartment buildings where there is less interaction among the residents. "What's more, we can learn from the beautiful architec-tural details of shikumen, and try to integrate them in our housing designs in a new way, not just copy (them)," he added.