A pavilion designed by V&A Dundee architect Kengo Kuma will be used to tell the story of the city’s regeneration in Edinburgh this summer.
The Dundee One City, Many Discoveries campaign has been invited to take part in the Pop-Up World Cities Expo on The Mound in Edinburgh from June 21 to July 17.
More than 100,000 visitors are expected over the course of the Expo’s four-week run and the campaign worked with Kengo Kuma associates to create a wooden pavilion which will tell the story of Dundee’s ongoing regeneration.
Other cities taking part in the Expo include Edinburgh, Vilnius and Rotterdam.
And while the Kengo Kuma-designed pavilion may be smaller than than £80.1 million V&A currently under construction on Dundee’s waterfront, its design is almost as complicated.
All of the wood used in the five metre by five metre structure has come from trees knocked over by storms in Templeton Woods.
The logs have been cut and then painstakingly attached to the pre-fabricated walls, giving the appearance of an extremely complicated log cabin.
Every single piece of timber touches at least three others and each side of the pavilion weighs around four tonnes. The entire pavilion will weigh more than 20 tonnes once completed.
Its roof will be made of perspex so the interior will be flooded with natural light.
Like Mr Kuma’s design for the V&A, the structure aims to create a link between the natural world and man-made structures.
A team of builders and joiners have spent three weeks painstakingly piecing together the building at Dundee City Council’s environment services depot on Clepington Road.
Once it is completed – and the team are satisfied with their work – it will be disassembled and transported to Edinburgh on five separate lorries for the Expo.
Once the Expo is over, the pavilion will be brought back to Dundee and displayed in Slessor Gardens.
After that, it will return to Templeton Woods where is will be used as bicycle hub near the start of the mountain bike trail.
Kengo Kuma said: “Kibako, meaning wood box in Japanese, is a wood pavilion composed of various lengths and diameters of tree trunks collected from woodland in Dundee.
“The trunks are stacked up randomly to create a structure inspired by firewood logs.
“Our aim was to create an environment that communicates the roughness and warmth of timber to sit in harmony with its environment and peripheral scenery.”
Mike Galloway, Dundee City Council’s director of city development, said: “As the UK’s only UNESCO City of Design, Dundee is currently undergoing one of the most significant regeneration projects in Europe and visitors to the Expo will be able to learn how our Waterfront is being transformed.
“Dundee is delighted to be part of this important Expo during Scotland’s Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design.
“Our unique pavilion will feature 3D Virtual Reality handsets which will allow the public to gain first hand experience of how Dundee is being redevelped with the V&A at its heart.”
The pavilion has been constructed by Kengo Kuma Associates in conjunction with local firm James F Stephen Architects.
David Maxwell, of builders George Martin Ltd has been responsible for overseeing construction and said building the one-of-a-kind pavilion had been a challenge.
“It has taken about three weeks to build,” he said.