Expo 2020 is currently being hosted by Dubai until March 31, 2022. The dates are all misaligned because this year’s World Expo was originally scheduled for last year.

As is typical of World Expos, countries from around the world participate by building a physical pavilion. Below is a photo of the UK Pavilion, which I thought was really interesting. It was designed by Es Devlin.

The pavilion is a cross-laminated timber structure with no actual exhibits inside. The structure itself is the exhibit.

As you can see, on one elevation of the pavilion there are a series of displays. These displays are used to show AI-generated poems that appear in both English and Arabic.

Part of the point is to celebrate the diversity of the UK. But the other point is to bring our attention to the growing involvement of algorithms in today’s world.

Photo by Ry Galloway and Alin Consstantin, courtesy of Es Devlin and via Dezeen

One of the co-founders of Juno -- a new mass-timber and modular housing company -- was recently interviewed by Dezeen. Prior to cofounding Juno, BJ Siegel was Apple's design director and spent 19 years designing and working on their stores. And so this is the lens that he and his partners are bringing to the real estate development space. (I also just learned this morning that their head of real estate is a former classmate of mine from Penn.) Here is an excerpt from the Dezeen article that speaks to their goal of productizing the delivery of new housing:

The third is Apple really challenged us to think about the way we deliver the project more like the way they deliver products through a kind of owner-furnished direct source supply chain model.

And that actually spurred a lot of investigation as to how to translate that work from a product into this industry [real estate development], which is really kind of not focused on that.

So that really was a big, big focus.

The company recently announced that they have broken ground on their first project in Austin, Texas. It is a five storey 24-unit residential project that is being positioned as "middle-income, market-rate" housing. They've reduced the building down to about 33 standardized parts and are using a secret type of mass timber that is manufactured in the US. Supposedly it's better than cross-laminated timber, but the company is keeping it as part of their secrete sauce right now.

Juno is not the first company to identify this gaping problem in the development and construction space. The typical construction process is antiquated, inefficient, and filled with far too much waste. Which is why modular / pre-fabricated housing has been a goal of architects, builders and others for generations. Eventually we will figure out how to better productize the delivery of new housing and bring down its costs. And in my view that will be a great thing for consumers.

Rendering by Engraff Studio via Dezeen

This is an incredible house in Hamilton, Ontario by Toronto-based architecture practice Partisans. The central idea is clearly its folding roof, which dips down to accommodate a set of stairs that lead to the roof of the house. At the same time, the sloping roof creates a wave-like enclosure for the indoor/outdoor pool that sits below it.

Partisans is, in my opinion, one of the most creative firms practicing in the city today. This house is a good example of that. I also admire their ability to go deep into materials and construction methods, which is something you need to do when you design forms like the ones you're seeing here. For more photos and information, check out this Dezeen article about the project.

Photos: Partisans