The Kazakhstan Pavilion and Science Museum, known as Nur-Alem in the country, is the iconic, high-performing centerpiece of EXPO-2017, 2017 international exposition, which was held from June 10 – September 10, 2017.
The site has been currently transformed into a Post-Expo development with cultural facilities, an office and research park, and residential components that seeks to attract international entrepreneurs.
Inspired by the EXPO-2017 theme, “Future Energy,” the Kazakhstan Pavilion and Science Museum embodies a futuristic design that is optimized to incorporate sustainable philosophies.
The museum was developed to accomplish the client’s goals of a spherical-shaped building that anchored the master plan of the exposition, while enabling the design team to push the design forward to meet the firm’s programmatic and sustainability goals. A pure-glass sphere—smooth, not faceted like a typical geosphere structure—was envisioned.
This innovative, double-curved-glass facade features glass panels that gently curve in three dimensions. The 80-meter-diameter structure is slightly modified from a perfect sphere shape to achieve the designer’s renewable-energy goals.
The design team used Building Information Modeling (BIM) to explore multiple iterations of the design in a virtual space early in the design process. The energy model created for the project specified a target of 81,056 kWh/yr of electricity and currently about 2.21% of the building’s energy demand is created from the PV system.
The epitome the EXPO-2017 theme “Future Energy,” is the exposition’s centerpiece, the Kazakhstan Pavilion and Science Museum, which seeks to educate visitors about the complex relationship with energy use.
The design team used Building Information Modeling (BIM) to explore multiple iterations of the design in a virtual space early in the design process. Each version was analyzed for design expression, energy impact, and structural integrity. The sphere’s complex design required close collaboration with the structural consultant for all opportunities for energy generation to be investigated, and several were incorporated into the building’s design.
•Wind turbines are set into the top of the building, which were predicted to produce a total of 52,700 kwh/yr of electricity or the equivalent of 1.6% of the buildings total electricity demand or 0.9% of total energy demand
•During EXPO-2017, the sphere was a museum for the history, culture, traditions, places of interest and also recent achievements of Kazakhstan
•In the post-exposition mode, the sphere will be a Museum of Future, where the basic types of energy will be demonstrated on site: space, sun, biomass, wind, waste, and kinetics