One pavilion stands out among many on display in Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan, which will continue till October 13, 2025. Featuring the world’s first structure built with a radiative cooling membrane that lowers temperatures without consuming any energy, the pavilion’s groundbreaking material was developed by Japanese startup SPACECOOL INC.
Striking triangular structures soar into the sky, their silver membranes reflecting the surrounding landscape to create a shimmering, dynamic exterior that shifts with the weather and time of day.
What sets the structure apart is its unique outer membrane. Developed by SPACECOOL INC., a startup from Osaka Gas Co., Ltd – one of Japan’s leading energy companies – the radiative cooling material not only reflects sunlight to minimize heat absorption but also radiates internal heat into outer space through the atmosphere, effectively cooling objects and spaces without the use of electricity or any other energy source.
Radiative cooling is a natural phenomenon whereby objects cool down by releasing residual heat into the surrounding environment as infrared radiation. However, SPACECOOL’s proprietary technology enhances this effect. By converting surrounding heat energy into infrared wavelengths that pass through earth’s atmosphere with minimal absorption – known as the ‘atmospheric window’ – and thus escape into outer space more easily, the company has successfully amplified radiative cooling effects and accomplished its commercialization as a multi-purpose membrane material.
