ABSTRACT
World Expos are mega-events initially organized to provide social, cultural, and political opportunities for countries. Recently, the focus has been shifted from displaying countries’ industrial powers to more humanitarian concerns, such as sustainability. However, due to their mega-scale and ephemeral nature, problems like building boom, oversized infrastructure, and abandoned pavilions are observed. This research analyzes a set of World Expo pavilions to investigate whether innovative strategies applied to pavilions’ structural systems and material properties would contribute to more sustainable post-expo conditions. Twelve pavilions with distinctive characteristics are selected from Hannover and Shanghai World Expos. Through this study, it is observed that post-expo reuse of permanent pavilions is more related to architectural properties and span capability of the structure, whereas the use of innovative design ideas in the selection of materials and structural configurations in temporary pavilions has an effect on the post-expo reuse and thus, urban sustainability.
