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Third in a three-part series exploring key themes from Expo 2025 Osaka

In the third phase of our journey through Expo 2025 Osaka, we depart from the aspects of technology and cultural identity and turn our attention to a shared global crisis: the environmental emergency and seeking a new equilibrium between human development and natural resources. If the previous articles considered some aspect of technology and cultural identity, we now shift to consider ecological systems, biodiversity and sustainability that, in a world of borders, requires immediate action by all humanity in partnership.

All photos by Matteo Belfiore

The pavilions that make up the Expo offer a variety of approaches to the same question: how to regenerate the planet while providing all who inhabit it with a sustainable future? The Nordic countries present a well-established historical model of circular economics, renewable energy and ecological design. Switzerland focuses its narrative on its role as steward of natural resources, and as a cultural landscape that draws from the Alpine region as a living urban laboratory of resilient sustainability. In addition, the nations of the Gulf, e.g., Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Kuwait, approach sustainability in contexts of scarcity, and focus on re-conceptualizations of water and energy management as well as desert ecology and preservation through technological innovation.

In addition to the national forms of thought, the Women's Pavilion provides the urgent umbilical connection of inclusiveness and gender parity in sustainable futures, while the poetic Forest of Civilization provides a liminal space to physically and metaphorically reconnect with nature, and is a reminder to the visitors that ecological awareness is a cultural decision, not a technical decision. This portion will consider these various presentations, noting how geographic, resource, and cultural contextualization shape new strategies for enduring sustainability.

Nordic pavilion: timber, trust, reuse, and shared nordic innovation

Designed by AMDL CIRCLE and engineered with RIMOND, the Nordic Pavilion translates regional values into architecture built for disassembly and second life. A timber structure—its dark cladding protected with natural oils and pigments—frames an open exhibition hall and a rooftop hospitality terrace, balancing low-impact craft with generous public space. The building reads less as a sealed icon than as a reusable kit of parts, aligning material stewardship with an inviting spatial choreography.

Curatorially, the project embraces Nordic Circle—a metaphor for collective movement and mutual reliance. It operates as a civic device where Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden convene to showcase trust-based innovation through talks, demonstrations, and cultural programs. The pavilion’s platform logic extends beyond the exhibition floor: a lively calendar of national days, workshops, and dialogues positions the house as a porous forum “together towards a better future.”

Sustainability here is construction logic, not slogan. Forest-managed wood, dry-assembly, and planned reuse tie circular design to real procurement and delivery, while daylight, natural ventilation, and outdoor rooms foreground human comfort. In Osaka, this timber beacon argues that cooperation is a spatial practice: architecture that hosts exchange, makes resource flows legible, and proves that elegant form and rigorous circularity can—and should—coexist.

Swiss pavilion: from Heidi to high tech

Designed by Manuel Herz Architekten with exhibition partner Bellprat Partner and builder NUSSLI, the Swiss Pavilion stages the motto “From Heidi to High-Tech” as a park of ultra-light spherical volumes. Visitors move through an experiential arc that bridges cultural memory and innovation—programmed around Augmented Human, Life, and Planet—with a rooftop café opening views across the site. Rather than a sealed icon, the pavilion behaves as a hospitable device for learning and encounter.

Structure is the message. Five bubble-like “spheres” are framed by curved steel-tube rings and clad with double-layer membrane cushions, forming a recyclable envelope that minimizes weight, transport, and embodied carbon. A simple four-storey technical building in steel anchors services and the café. After the Expo, membranes and components are slated for second-life uses, articulating circularity as construction logic rather than slogan. Swiss commissioners describe it as the lightest Swiss Expo structure to date—an architectural proof that doing more with less can still deliver delight.

The curatorial tone is clear and generous: a sequence of playful “spheres” that connect beloved narratives to cutting-edge research, presented with the clarity and precision associated with Switzerland. Set within Expo’s broader call to “Designing the Future Society for Our Lives,” the pavilion advances bilateral dialogue while remaining an accessible public room calibrated for daylight, transparency, and low-impact comfort.

Saudi Arabia pavilion: market streets, shade, immersion, and sustainable futures

Conceived by Foster + Partners for the Yumeshima waterfront, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Pavilion translates the experience of Saudi towns into architecture: shaded passages, clustered “neighborhoods,” and an inner court that invites lingering rather than rush. It is an urban microcosm calibrated for movement and meeting—now underpinned by a clear environmental brief: low-carbon materials, energy-saving luminaires, and rooftop photovoltaics targeting net-zero operational carbon, designed in line with the Saudi Green Initiative and achieving CASBEE S, the highest Japanese green-building rating. It is also the first temporary structure to receive the WELL Health–Safety Rating.

Inside, the journey unfolds like a contemporary souq. Immersive media, performance, and tactile displays lead visitors from heritage to innovation, while the spatial language—arcades, courtyards, and canopies—balances intimacy with spectacle and turns climate into comfort through shade and airflow. These passive measures are complemented by the pavilion’s active systems and circular procurement, aligning culture with measurable ecological outcomes.

Positioned within Expo’s call to “Designing Future Society for Our Lives,” the pavilion communicates hospitality and ambition in equal measure. The official participant page underscores the narrative: tradition meeting transformation through a sustainable outlook that treats the pavilion as a platform for dialogue—with Japan and the world—about stewardship of resources and new models of urban resilience. It’s an architecture of encounters—legible, welcoming, and judged as much by the carbon it avoids as by the stories it tells.

UAE pavilion: Earth to Ether

The UAE Pavilion at Expo 2025—titled Earth to Ether—reads as a hospitable landscape rather than a sealed object, weaving cultural memory with material innovation. Its narrative draws on the date palm as structure, material, and metaphor, reimagining areesh traditions through contemporary craft and Japanese joinery. An interdisciplinary “Earth to Ether Collective” led by the UAE Expo Office brings together partners including design-build firm RIMOND, exhibition designers ATELIER BRÜCKNER, timber specialists Process Iguchi and Shelter, and landscape architects SLA.

Visitors move between immersive zones that spotlight Explorers of Space, healthcare catalysts, sustainability pioneers, and woven legacies—an experiential arc aligning with the Expo’s “Designing Future Society for Our Lives.” Material intelligence underpins the poetics. Ninety signature rachis columns are crafted from agricultural by-products of date palms, complemented by Datecrete pavers made from crushed date seeds—closing loops and reducing embodied impacts.

SLA’s nature-based design bridges Emirati and Japanese ecologies with satoyama references, oak and red pine plantings, and a khoos-inspired cedar pergola for shade and breeze. Inside, intuitive scenography by ATELIER BRÜCKNER couples cinematic media with hand-on interfaces to make innovation legible to families and professionals alike. As a public platform, the pavilion extends hospitality with programming, shop and dining, positioning the UAE as a nation of “Dreamers Who Do”—grounded in heritage, oriented to research, and committed to regenerative practice.

Kuwait pavilion: open wings, heritage, innovation

Designed by LAVA as the Visionary Lighthouse, Kuwait’s pavilion greets visitors with two sweeping “open wings” that channel Gulf light and sea breezes into a shaded public realm. The composition—forecourt, courtyard, galleries, and a central dome evoking a pearl under the night sky—reads as a contemporary landmark rooted in maritime memory and desert craft. Structural design by sbp refines the wing geometry and lightweight spans.

Interactivity is the driver, not a garnish. A two-storey sequence choreographs hands-on exhibits, sensor-responsive projections, and participatory media that invite visitors to steer narratives—from coastal trade routes to contemporary science and sustainable futures. The galleries encourage “active learning” through tactile models, responsive light and sound, and family-friendly workshops, turning audiences into co-authors rather than spectators. A rooftop or upper-level outlook and generous thresholds sustain the social rhythm between displays, performances, and everyday lingering.

Material intelligence supports the poetics: high-performance envelopes temper glare and heat; shaded arcades and courtyards deliver passive comfort; modular elements anticipate efficient build and reuse. As a civic device, the pavilion extends its welcome with regional cuisine and community programming. In sum, this is architecture as invitation—open, memorable, and deeply interactive—aligning Kuwait’s heritage with forward-looking research and the Expo’s call to design better futures.

Women’s pavilion: weaving voices, craft, climate, innovation, equity, and care

Conceived by Yuko Nagayama & Associates in collaboration with Cartier, the pavilion is imagined as a civic stage where personal narratives, technological inventiveness, and environmental responsibility meet. Rather than a sealed object, it unfolds as a sequence of shaded thresholds, verandas, and open rooms that invite dwell time and dialogue. The architectural language is deliberately light—slender frames, reversible joints, and breathable screens—so the building reads as infrastructure for gathering more than an icon.

The curatorial arc champions women’s contributions to society across entrepreneurship, science, culture, and climate action. Visitors move from a welcoming forecourt into an immersive core that blends filmic storytelling with tactile exhibits and maker tables, before reaching quieter alcoves for mentorship and workshops. Throughout, the scenography privileges accessibility and participation, turning audiences into co-authors of the content.

Environmental intelligence is embedded in the fabric of the project. Passive strategies—deep overhangs, cross-ventilation, filtered daylight—temper heat and glare, while a circular approach guides materials and logistics: dry-assembled components, disassembly-ready partitions, and finishes specified for reuse. Landscape is treated as co-author, with planting that cools and softens the microclimate and small “gardens of care” that double as outdoor classrooms.

The result is a generous, future-facing pavilion: an architecture of welcome that makes empowerment tangible, ties sustainability to everyday practice, and proves that cultural storytelling can be measured not only in words and images, but in comfort, material frugality, and the quality of encounters it enables.

Forest of civilization: prehistoric grove for global unity and memory

The Forest of Civilizations is an open-air installation composed of 6,500-year-old subfossil oak trunks curated as an “ancient forest.” Sourced and conserved by the Czech team at Subfossil Oak, the grove will feature 133 monumental pieces—each dedicated to a participating nation—so that every visitor can “find” their country among the trees. Read as a single root system, the ensemble connects human history and planetary time through the legible archive of annual rings, turning geology into a public chronicle of civilization.

Set within the Expo grounds as a landscape you walk through—not a building you enter—the project foregrounds material truth and climate awareness. The trunks’ dark, almost charred appearance results from millennia of natural carbonization underground, a striking counter-image to the Expo’s bright architecture and a quiet prompt to reflect on extraction, resilience, and finite resources. As a Platinum Partner of Expo 2025, the installation pairs powerful symbolism with careful logistics and conservation, positioning art, science, and craft as co-authors of a shared future.

Curatorially, the grove operates as a civic classroom: tree-rings visualize deep time; national dedications frame cooperation over competition; and didactic media recast heritage as ecological responsibility. In this sense, the Forest becomes an environmental instrument as much as a cultural one—inviting slow looking, collective memory, and a renewed ethic of stewardship.

Conclusions — Between Innovation, Identity, and New Sustainability

Closing this three-part journey—Technology, Innovation and the Future of Work; Culture, Tradition, and National Identity; Environment, Nature, and New Sustainability—Expo 2025 emerges as a powerful cultural device: stimulating, well-programmed, and able to make diverse languages speak to one another. The curatorial quality is often high; yet in more than a few pavilions, technology overwhelms materiality and design. Screens, AR/VR, and immersive media frequently eclipse constructive grammar, the tactility of materials, and detail as a carrier of meaning.

On sustainability, commitments are declared with conviction—design for disassembly, circularity, low-carbon strategies—but it remains to be seen how much will become post-Expo reality (reuse, material traceability, second lives). We’ll know more at the close. Organization also warrants a note: access management too often produced queues of unacceptable length, diminishing the visitor experience and penalizing slower, more reflective content.

Even so, the event remains a precious arena of encounter—a laboratory of cooperation that aligns research, industry, and creativity. The wish for the future is clear: that design once again take center stage at World Expos—echoing the early decades that gave us iconic pavilions—with less spectacle for its own sake and more constructive intelligence, more material honesty, and more high-quality public space.