Expo Osaka German Pavilion
The German Pavilion could have been a lecture on circularity. It wasn’t.
TSC created and designed the three central immersive installations at the heart of the pavilion, Wa! Germany, as partner and subcontractor to facts and fiction, the agency that built it for the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. Each room was made to turn visitors into participants rather than onlookers. Guiding everyone through all three were the Circulars, mascots who speak German, Japanese and English. Even the pavilion’s materials were circular: designed for reuse, built without a single non-reversible connection.
What we built
Three rooms, one question. Circular Living, where visitors design a future city with the Dream Machine, sustainability as something you build yourself. Circular Economy, a 360-degree immersive narrative you step inside and look around in. Circular Me, the smallest and most personal room, holding rather than stating the belief that individual action connects to something larger. The Expo ran from 13 April to 13 October 2025.
At the Art Directors Club (ADC) Awards 2026 in Hamburg, the pavilion won a Grand Prix for Spatial Experience, with a gold, five silvers and a bronze.
The challenge
Take a theme as abstract and easily preached as circularity, and make it something a visitor feels and takes part in, across three rooms and in three languages.
“A German visitor, a Japanese visitor and a child from anywhere left having built the same thing without sharing a word.”
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Awards
Credits
Organized by
Koelnmesse GmbH, on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy
Concept, Planning and Realization
German Pavilion Consortium consisting of facts and fiction GmbH and GL events
Content, Exhibition, Media Design
facts and fiction GmbH, among others with collaborative partner flora&faunavisions – Member of The Storytelling Company GmbH
Construction
GL events
Architecture and Spatial Design
LAVA (Laboratory for Visionary Architecture)
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