The scale of the entry pavilions is mammoth, and it needs to be. At peak times the crowds are huge.

Detail of the entry pavilions is excellent--clean, precise and beautiful.

Lighting throughout the Expo is pretty spectacular at night.

China's pavilion is the dominant landmark immediately adjacent to the entry concourse.

One of the most interesting country pavilions is Spain's. The color, material and texture is evocative (though it is somewhat crudely made).

The exterior surface is made of basket material of various configurations shingled to create a loose, rich pattern.

There is already considerable weathering, and it is clear this is a temporary installation. It will soon self-destruct.

Spain's pavilion also looks great at night with the texture of the basket weave accentuated by the light.

The interior has three major spaces, the most spectacular of which is dominated by one huge art piece. A thirty foot tall animatronics baby looms over the crowded hall.

The baby is amazingly lifelike. It changes expressions and moves very slowly in response to the crowd. If one area gets particularly loud it will look over in that direction.

As you get up close the skin and detail is extraordinary.

United Arab Emirates made an impressive show for a small group of countries.

There seemed to be allusions to rolling sand dunes and ripples created in the sand.

Germany's pavilion looked very--German. There were a lot of trendy angular shapes all over the Expo. This one was the most sophisticated of that genre.

Poland took the angular route as well, but gave it an original twist by making reference to paper cutting traditions in Poland.

Since China also has a strong paper cutting tradition, this was a nice reference.

Although I expected the British pavilion to be one of my favorites from pictures I had seen, it was a bit of a disappointment. It was tiny and kind of weak. The little "jewel" of the cathedral was lovely, but was just a small bit of an otherwise crude building.

A number of the smaller countries' pavilions were really impressive. The interior of Chile's building was very cool both spatially and in terms of how it was made.

You actually walk through the big egg which is the centerpiece of the space.

Norway's pavilion was also an interesting little vignette in wood.

It does a great job of exploring lamination and layering of materials.

Bamboo is used to make beautiful, if somewhat gratuitous, forms.

Korea's pavilion was one of the most original ones I thought. It did a great job of integrating indoors and outdoors together.

It had real spatial complexity as well as strong surface treatment.

It also looked great at night when it seemed to glow from within.

The architecture of World’s Fairs in general ranges from exquisite (e.g. Mies Barcelona Pavilion, Le Corbusier’s L’Esprit Nouveau Pavilion, Aalto’s Finnish Pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair) to just flashy and eye-catching with very little sophistication.  There was a lot of attention grabbing excess at Shanghai and occasionally some real quality.  I was most impressed when there was a powerful effect achieved with simple means–like the basket skin in Spain;s pavilion or the simple exterior and rich interior of Chile’s pavilion.

All in all, I feel like I am at an architectural petting zoo at these World’s Fairs.  Every exotic entry stands alone.  Each pavilion is muscling out its neighbor in a effort to be the star attraction.  At Shanghai, architecture seemed to be the major medium for individual expression.  The exhibits seemed to take a back seat to the buildings, and were often pretty boring.

It was a bit dismaying to see how trendy the architecture tended to be in a lot of cases.  There were a lot of warmed-over versions of shapes, forms and materials you see around a lot.  The real invention or authentic expression of message was pretty rare.

The best exhibits in the fair were the crowds.  They were fantastic to watch.  The overwhelming majority of people there (I heard numbers from 95% to 99%) were Chinese tourists from all over the country.  They had their parasols to protect against the potent sun during the day and mobbed the place until late into the night.  They seemed endlessly patient (waiting in line for up to 5 hours for some pavilions), wondrously curious and genuinely proud to have hosted such a great show.

The Chickasaw Nation Medical Center connects with nature to provide a nurturing healthcare environment for Native Americans living in southeastern Oklahoma.  The architecture maximizes access and views to the pristine, 230-acre site while inviting daylight into the buildings.  Patient units are directly oriented to the creek and trees, with traditional hospital “front” and “back” elements tucked to the side.  Chickasaw art and culture, which emphasizes giving and sharing with extended family, influences the massing and building forms.  A large “Town Center” gathering space is at the heart of the facility, adjacent to food services. Faceted facades and terrazzo floor patterns echo traditional Chickasaw neckwear.  Oklahoma stone and unfinished copper panels are among the natural building materials assembled to take on an organized yet organic aspect.  The medical center encompasses a 216,000 square foot hospital and a 142,000 square foot clinic.

The FBI’s recently opened 275,000-square-foot field office integrates concerns for security, sustainability, and appropriate image into a thoroughly synthesized design solution. A lightweight metal frame is hung from powerful concrete walls to carry a “second skin” for the building. Heavily fritted, laminated glass attaches to the lightweight frame with stainless steel clips. The almost opaque glass, placed away from the actual thermal wall of the building, shades the structure substantially from direct heat gain. The space between the two skins becomes a significantly cooled microclimate, reducing the load requirements for air conditioning systems. Apertures in the glass skin, sized somewhat smaller than the actual windows, are carefully placed to provide excellent day-lighting with reduced glare for interior work spaces. Concrete walls are sheathed in heat-reflecting aluminum shingles, allowing the concrete’s high thermal mass to benefit the temperature and stability of the structure. Larry Speck was lead designer for the project, a joint venture between PageSoutherlandPage and Leo A Daly/LAN.

Site characteristics and the desire to create an unusual merger of landscape and living drive the design of Waterstone, a collection of 71 condominiums on Lake Travis.  Replacing a subdivision originally planned for low-density, single-family homes, the development inhabits the landscape with minimum intrusiveness while offering the privacy and convenience of single-family homes.  The structures are strung along a single contour to minimize cut and fill and the disruption of plant material. Parking and roads are tightly clustered around the units to maintain the sense of being in a natural environment.  The units face strongly to spectacular views and ideal natural light conditions; large, shaded patios connect inhabitants with the outdoors.  Materials and colors, including local fieldstone, help the buildings merge gracefully with the site and reflect the character of Central Texas.

Master planning East Avenue, a 23-acre, mixed-use development, involved more than 80 meetings with stakeholders over the course of a year.  The site, an ideal location for increasing density near Austin’s urban core, became available when a small college relocated.  The East Avenue community will re-inhabit the site with moderate-income rental housing, condominiums, retail, medical offices, a boutique hotel, entertainment facilities, an urban park and a plaza.  The neighborhood will center on a lively, pedestrian-oriented street lined with retail.  Two public open spaces, both located to preserve mature existing trees, will punctuate the street. Sustainable design features will include continuous bioswales to treat  storm water, more than two acres of green roofs, and an efficient central energy plant to provide steam and chilled water for the whole project.  PageSoutherlandPage is designing several buildings within the development, the first of which completed construction in fall 2009.

Discovery Green returns 12 acres of mostly paved lots to a natural green space in the heart of downtown Houston. A core of outdoor activity near the convention center, ballpark and arena, the park also provides a central focus for new development. Larry Speck led the design of the park’s architecture, creating a model of sustainability. Two restaurants and a park administration building feature deep porches and roofs that pitch to the north, providing shade and balanced daylight and drawing warm air up and out. Optimal solar orientation, green roofs, photovoltaic arrays and the use of local and renewable materials further contribute to the project’s Gold LEED certification. Hargreaves Associates Landscape Architects designed Discovery Green led the park design in association with PageSoutherlandPage. Other architectural elements include an underground garage for 600 vehicles, a bandstand, a children’s performance space and various shade structures.

The Grove is set prominently within Discovery Green park, Houston’s new 12-acre urban oasis.  The restaurant architecture takes inspiration from a magnificent, double row of live oak trees that have long inhabited the site.  Indoor and outdoor dining spaces are strung long and thin, just to the south of the oak alley.  Each room has a slightly different vista into the tree canopy, through huge expanses of glass that also admit soft north light.  Broken into a series of smaller parts defined by function, the building complements the natural surroundings with its scale, texture, and material palette.  An intensely colorful, commissioned artwork by Austin artist Margo Sawyer provides the one burst of color.  The Grove is certified LEED Gold for its innovative, sustainable design, together with the park and all of its architecture.