Our client IWAR, a TU Darmstadt institute, is represented in the „Urban Planet“ pavilion at the Expo 2010 in Shanghai. We were asked to help showing IWAR‘s project Semizentral Germany at the exhibition that has a duration of six months. The average daily target group -about 70.000 visitors- is heterogenous, but made the task even more interesting for us: presenting information about the project and making its complex technology understandable even during a brief contact time.

Financed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, we designed a biomorphic exhibition module. Surrounded by an info graphic and text elements, the center consists of a 50-inch screen showing an animated film. Downsized to not even two minutes and in a playful manner, we managed to visualize the Semizentral approach of organizing water supply in metropolises in a decidedly more sustainable, more practical and more economical way compared to traditional systems. Given the international audience, we paid particular attention to concept, styling and a visual sign system that is globally understandable.

With our approach, the audience can inform itself of a technologically based theme on an emotional basis. The audience becomes aware of the subject without having to understand complicated statistics or technical details but is rather entertained with references to daily life. We are as pleased with the result as the Darmstadt-based engineers of the future.