Shanghai can enjoy a sneak preview of the competing designs for the Britain Pavilion at World Expo Shanghai 2010 after an exhibition featuring the designs was launched last night.

A visitor takes a picture of a poster of one of the competing designs for the Britain Pavilion at World Expo Shanghai 2010 after an exhibition showing the design finalists opened last night.

Six teams competing to design the UK Pavilion have brought their proposals back to Shanghai after they examined the Expo site for inspiration two months ago.

Their creations are on show until Sunday at the Shine Space Gallery on Moganshan Road, one of the city's creative industry zones.

The models of the designs have just been on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and they have attracted a great deal of interest, said the British Consul General, Carma Elliot.

"Any one of the six designs on show could make a fantastic contribution to World Expo 2010," said Elliot. "We're looking forward to hearing what the British and Chinese public think."

The public opinion will be considered by the jury which will select the winning design on September 19.

People can choose their own favorite designs for the UK Pavilion by voting at the exhibition or by commenting on the UK's official Expo Website www.ukshanghaiexpo.com before September 18.

"We encourage all of the designers to think about bringing innovation into the designs," said Elliot.

Some of the designs feature interesting approaches to building techniques and materials using environmentally friendly, technologically advanced materials instead of concrete or steels. And the UK organizers hope their pavilion will meet a high environmental standard.

The six teams were chosen from more than 40 design groups and include the creators of the London Eye - the largest Ferris wheel in the world - and Zaha Hadid, the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize, the world's top award for architecture.

The UK has chosen to build its own 6,000-square-meter pavilion on the Pudong side of the Expo site, beside the Lupu Bridge. Construction is expected to kick off in 2009.

The winning team will be announced on September 21.

Desinged by Draw Architects, the bulding represents British urban and rural life, surrounded by water and landscape. As well as a tea house, the planted landscape deck has three feature pavilions which appear as clouds over the landscape.

Desinged by John McAslan and Partners, it shows an expedition through our national experience of urban conditions. Within the design, there are views and vantage points, outwards to Shanghai and inwards to the pavilion's central event space.

The picture shows one of the candidate designs of UK Pavilion in Shanghai World Expo in 2010 desinged by Heatherwick Studio. The lighting box like construction rests on a soft forest in an urban field, flanked by two ramped arms of grass, formed as ramparts under which an auditorium, exhibition space, cafe, shop and reception spaces are sited.

Desinged by Avery Associates Architects, the design showcases a metaphoric public park with a lake and an island. An island nation lives in the island pavilion, highlighting a dynamic and inventive race whose desire for prosperity is counterposed by a deep rooted need to maintain their ages-old way of life and traditional rapport with nature.

Designed by Marks Barfield Architects, this proposal comprises eight independent yet connected tree structures, which demonstrate the unparalleled cross-section of innovation in modern Britain.

Designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, the pavilion delivers the exhibiting content with two ribbons of light -- giant, flexible, moving LED screens. On the inside of the ribbons of light, a series of scripted image stories are told, each relating to one of the Expo's five "Sub themes."

(Shanghai Daily August 24, 2007)