“The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.”
Plato’s profound words perfectly capture the awe we experience when witnessing the limitless potential of materials through innovative design. This year, the much-anticipated return of form and material takes center stage at the Thematic Pavilion.
The pavilion lineup for this year is nothing short of spectacular, featuring six visionary collaborations between leading designers and renowned material brands:
- Looklen Architects x S-ONE GROUP
- pbm X Nippon Paint
- Flat12x X Vanachai Group
- A&A x Fameline
- ativich / studio x VG
- POAR x WOODEN
For this first phase, we are revealing only the 3D visuals and selected conceptual narratives. But don’t settle just yet—these images barely scratch the surface of what awaits in the real-life experience.
April 29 – May 4, 2025 “Please visit my pavilion.”
Challenger Hall 1-3, IMPACT Muang Thong Thani. Come and fuel your passion for design!
Looklen Architects X S-ONE
“Minimal embellishment, maximum impact”
This year’s Thematic Pavilion, designed by Looklen Architects, challenges conventional material perceptions, reintroducing aluminum in its purest form. The design embraces structural honesty with a striking yet simple grid layout, creating a visually dynamic space. Aluminum strips form the structural framework of beams and columns, generating an open, airy public space infused with artistic depth.
A defining feature is the daring choice of mill-finish aluminum—a highly sensitive, rarely seen raw finish—integrated with a sustainability-driven design approach. Key considerations include:
- Decoding modularity: Full-length aluminum strips are used or cut in ways that allow maximum reusability
- Innovative modular assembly: A woven structure reduces material waste
- Natural aluminum finish: Eliminates unnecessary processing, making recycling more efficient
Beyond its structural ingenuity, the pavilion explores aluminum’s versatility through furniture, interactive products, and multimedia installations, offering visitors a multi-sensory experience in three styles:
- Architectural perception: Engage with the spatial dynamics of aluminum structures
- Tactile exploration: Experience custom-crafted aluminum furniture designed exclusively for this pavilion
- Interactive engagement: Interact with aluminum through multimedia elements
This design pushes material boundaries like never before—if you’re fascinated by raw material beauty, this is a must-see!
pbm x Nippon Paint
Color is more than just a surface—it influences function, emotions, and personal experiences.
Pbm presents ‘The Future City’, a Nippon Paint pavilion that reimagines the power of color as a transformative journey. Each zone within the pavilion reflects different aspects of life, using unique color palettes and immersive techniques to evoke emotions and personal connections.
With its futuristic curved architecture, the pavilion draws inspiration from the Color Wheel, an essential yet complex design tool. This concept emphasizes seamless harmony between contrasting shades.
The highlight of this pavilion lies in its understated yet evocative approach to color. Rather than overtly displaying hues, it invites your imagination to take center stage. The entire exterior is painted in white, serving as a blank canvas. However, the open framework allows light and color—generated through visitor interactions in various zones—to filter through, subtly transforming the space. This interplay creates a dynamic effect, where the pavilion’s pristine white surfaces become imbued with shifting tones, altering the surrounding atmosphere in real-time. As a result, visitors themselves become part of the creative process, shaping the pavilion’s aesthetic with their presence and movement.
Flat12x X Vanachai Group
Redefining plywood beyond its traditional indoor architectural applications
Thematic Pavilion from Flat12X transforms Vanachai Group’s diverse plywood materials in terms of design, pattern, color, texture and thickness, into an architectural spectacle. The pavilion takes shape as a layered tunnel, constructed from wide plywood panels stacked in an intricate curve formation. A ceiling structure reinforces the tunnel, ensuring both stability and aesthetic fluidity.
This immersive tunnel invites you on a journey to explore new experiences with engineered wood materials while delving into the story of Vanachai Group—a leading manufacturer dedicated to producing eco-friendly wood alternatives and preserving the future of forests. A highlight sculpture awaits at the tunnel’s end—what could it be? You’ll have to step inside to find out!
A&A x Fameline
A bold landmark by A&A, this pavilion fuses Fameline’s material expertise with the theme “My Time, My Space”
Time: The evolving nature of aluminum and metal materials is symbolized through progressive spatial design
My Space: “Personal identity” and “design value” are reflected in the flexible applications of cladding materials
[Symbolism of organization growth embedded within]
Beyond aesthetics, the pavilion narrates Fameline’s multi-generational legacy, integrated into the design:
- Steel structures represent the company’s first generation, New Saeng Chai (NSC Steel)
- The advanced architectural cladding signifies the current generation’s innovations, which values product development and design
Adding a high-tech twist, VR/AR technology enhances the visitor experience, offering a virtual preview of future projects. The result is a fusion of memorable history, innovation, and interactive exploration.
ativich x VG
The roof—often overlooked in architecture—is reimagined in ativich x VG’s pavilion, transforming it into an immersive focal point.
To highlight the significance of roofing, Ativich showcases innovative roofing solutions from VG by reimagining its spatial potential. Through a modular system, they have transformed roofing materials into an expansive, interactive space, inviting visitors to observe and physically engage with various surfaces up close. Additionally, the exhibit explores the deep-rooted relationship between people and roofs, weaving together diverse personal memories that, despite their differences, share a common thread—life under the same roof.
[Different experiences under the same roof]
Inspired by kaleidoscopic reflections, the pavilion features mirrored surfaces from ceiling to walls, creating a “Forest of Mirrors.” As visitors step beneath the dynamic pavilion, ever-shifting reflections mimic a kaleidoscope’s visual play—alternating patterns and reflections that transform the visual experience.
This interplay of movement and interaction blurs the line between the observer and the structure, making both an integral part of the design itself, echoing Winston Churchill’s famous words: “We shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us.”
POAR x WOODDEN
For those unfamiliar with fine wood craftsmanship, straight-grain wood is rare, expensive, and a testament to production expertise. This rare phenomenon can be experienced, however, through design.
POAR and WOODDEN bring this art to life through a simple yet elegant pavilion inspired by lumber storage aesthetics. A distorted gable structure houses stainless steel wood racks, mimicking the meticulous selection process in factories. Modular wood panels, including the Mozu 3D decorative wall, are reimagined as architectural elements, bridging interior and exterior design.
The deliberate spacing between the stacked wooden shelves creates a narrow passageway, guiding visitors to slow their pace and experience the textures and materials up close. This design encourages both distant admiration and intimate engagement with the pavilion, offering a layered experience of architectural storytelling.
[Precision in Materials: A Visual and Tactile Effect]
One of the pavilion’s most striking design elements is the varying lengths of wooden beams on the shelves. Beyond creating dynamic light and shadow effects as visitors move behind them, this detail also reflects the reality of the material production process. Natural wood features unique grain patterns, with no two pieces identical.
WOODDEN has developed a specialized cutting technique that minimizes material loss, ensuring that each plank retains as much of its natural beauty as possible. The large, seamless wooden surfaces often seen in flooring and interiors are, in fact, a result of meticulous craftsmanship—where each piece is carefully joined, one by one, to create a harmonious whole.
