The pavilion representing France at the World Expo 2015 imagines an upside-down landscape that mimics the rolling hills of the French countryside. The underside of the latticed timber structure reveals a fresh food marketplace offering a bounty of vegetables, herbs and hops, which are later served in the onsite restaurant.

Conceived by Paris studio XTU Architects, the competition-winning French pavilion design responds to the expo theme "Feeding the Planet. Energy for Life" by proposing a building based around a vision of the market hall as a centre for agricultural production.

"The project reinterprets the market model – once a place of exchange, tomorrow's market will be a place of production to be consumed on the spot," said the design team.

The ground floor of the pavilion will accommodate an exhibition centred around France's food production. Upstairs, a restaurant will serve the onsite freshly grown produce.

"Below the horizontal roof, the Great Market presents itself as a 'reversed' and spectacular landscape that evokes the French identity born from territories," said the studio.

The pavilion will be constructed by May 2015, in time for the opening of the expo. Towards the end of the exhibition, the pavilion will host a festival to celebrate the harvesting of the hops.

France is one of 145 nations participating in the Milan 2015 expo, which takes place from May to October. Other proposals unveiled so far include a Dutch pavilion with a field and tractors on its roof and the national Chinese pavilion, which will feature an undulating roof and an indoor crop field.