Cocoa Cluster Concept

The Milan Expo 2015 Cluster dedicated to the Cocoa products of emerging countries from Africa and Latin America depicts the mise en scène of some possible representations of processes, forms and stories associated with Cocoa. This cluster has been designed having in mind the allegoric image of the highly characterized landscape where the cocoa is actually grown: a tropical environment whose topographically complex ground is represented -in our project- by smoothly moving up and down a variety of gentle triangulated slopes. An environment featuring an invasive vegetation that vehemently emerges and strongly colonizes the space among the buildings, aggressing those buildings and compromising their static equilibrium and their geometry. At that point the skin of the pavilions, a lightweight fabric that metaphorically protects the precious contents of Cocoa products, opens and unfolds, letting at sight the internal structures. The jungle trees, individually, in pairs or groups, are transfigured into poles or urban furniture systems, playing different roles: they define functional areas, they act as landmarks, they support the different levels of lighting or the speakers and they orient visitors into this vibrant magnificent artificial tropical jungle-plateau.