DG ECHO

The European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, ECHO for short, is directly responsible to the European Union. To make people more aware of the fact that the European Union plans, coordiantes and carries out humanitarian aid worldwide, the European Commission came up with the idea for a roadshow pavilion.

This pavilion is to inform visitors in six major European cities (Vilnius, Bucharest, Berlin, Rome, Marseille and Madrid) how the aid organisation functions or, more precisely, how the headquarters in Brussels operates and identifies, plans and executes an assignment in regions around the world in need of help. Studio KNACK was commissioned to draw up a concept for the external appearance of the pavilion for the presentation that gives an insight into ECHO’s work and modus operandi. Responsible for the communication campaign of DG ECHO, “EU saves lifes” was the mc Group, which was also Studio KNACK´s contractee.

Through the state-of-the-art virtual reality presentation visitors are transported into another world on a 5-minute tour. After putting on a headset the pavilion area is seen at first; a few seconds later all of the pavilions side walls fold outwards ‘virtually’ onto the ground. The surroundings are no longer that of the pavilion but the virtual scene in a trouble spot – such as, in this case, a refugee camp in Bangladesh.

The design elements of the pavilion with its prescribed width of 4 metres, a length of 10 metres and a height of 2.5 metres, comprise multiplex and translucent cellular polycarbonate panels. The idea behind the design is to awake the interest of passers-by through the light and shadows visible from outside.

 

 

Services: 3D Design, Visualisation, Design Phases 1-7, Architectural Design Supervision
Size: 40 sqm
Contractee: mc Group
Location: Vilnius, Bucarest, Berlin, Rome, Marseille, Madrid
Photos: Julian Dostmann