Yurt of Light

The interactive installation in the British Pavilion at Expo 2017 confronts over half a million visitors with the complex relationships between nature and humanity in a playful way.

The heart of the pavilion is a light sculpture inspired by the architecture of Kazakh yurts. A light touch is all it takes to make the transparent spokes of the sculpture glow. After a few moments, the light fades. Visitors enter into an organic exchange with the architectural body and become part of an eventful play of light.

The yurt is encircled by a 60-metre-long panorama. It displays computer-generated landscapes reproduce in great detail the relationships between the sun, the earth, and our climate. Surrounded by changing weather, the projected images also react to the streams of visitors to convey a wide range of moods.

iart was the key partner for the design, development, and implementation of the transparent yurt and the panoramic projection, both designed by the British architect Asif Khan. Musician Brian Eno composed the soundtrack and Catherine Heymans, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Edinburgh, developed the scientific context.