EcoARK
Name: EcoARK
Client: Taipei Expo Park
Location: Taipei, Taiwan
Date: June 2010
Award: The Earth Award 2010 Product Category
The EcoArk Pavilion located in Taipei, Taiwan is the world’s first fully functional, public structure made of Polli-Brick™. Built using 1.5 million recycled plastic bottles, the nine-story-tall EcoARK was a principle structure for the 2010 Taipei International Flora Exposition before it converted into a public museum. Its public spaces cover an area the size of six basketball courts. The building’s comfortable internal environment comes courtesy of natural ventilation, an exterior waterfall which bathes the structure in water collected from rainstorms as well as Polli-Brick™’s high insulation properties.
Embedded solar power captured during the day runs EcoArk’s LED lighting systems at night. The building, a new addition to the Taipei skyline in 2010, has since hosted numerous fashion shows, a music video filming and countless of public meetings.
The EcoArk pavilion is widely hailed as a benchmark for the future of green buildings and adheres to the mantra of “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle”. The nine-story high EcoArk Pavilion is built largely out of recycled plastic bottles. It weighs 50 percent less than a conventional building, yet it is strong enough to withstand the forces of nature, including fire. EcoArk is featured in National Geographic's Megastructures.