One of the more exciting and interesting buildings I’ve seen, The Seed Cathedral is truly inspiring and certainly got to be considered one of the building’s of 2010.
Thomas Heatherwick said:
“The Seed Cathedral sits in the centre of the UK Pavilion’s site, 20 metres in height, formed from 60,000 slender transparent rods, each 7.5 metres long and each encasing one or more seeds at its tip. During the day, they act as optic fibres and draw daylight inwards to illuminate the interior.
At night, light sources inside each rod allow the whole structure to glow. As the wind moves past, the building and its optic “hairs” gently move to create a dynamic effect.
The seeds have been sourced from China’s Kunming Institute of Botany, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank partnership.”