Client: Southbank Center, Royal Festival Hall

Overview

We were commissioned by the Southbank Center in London to design two large installations on either side of the Royal Festival Hall.

Goals

Ventricle is a gravity formed pair of structures that hang in the interior of the Southbank Centre. Through the combination of entwined geometry and light, the installations are designed to create a visual vibrancy that comes from the embrace of geometry, materials, and light. Like the weaving of the many cultures found in London and around the world the structures are a reflection on the idea that working together through love and by embracing our differences leads to unimaginably wonderful results.

Process

Each lightweight aluminum structure is made of intertwined tubes and clad in 3M’s Solar Mirror Film. The film is typically applied to photo-voltaic panels to increase the sunlight they receive. In this case we are taking advantage of the sunlight coming through the adjacent glass walls to use the film’s ability to refract and cast light. The net like hanging structures refract the light casting a woven landscape of color into the interior of the Southbank Center. The geometry for each structure is designed using form finding software to engineer the optimal hanging shape. The structure of each piece is made of thousands of uniquely laser cut aluminum pieces riveted together to form a large net. This net is clad in solar reflective film that redirects the spectrum of light depending on the angle it passes through the surface, both amplifying and colorizing the light in different shades.