Suspended Canopies

Project

Haikou Duty Free Shopping City

Client

China Duty Free Group

Creative

Wētā Workshop

Build

Dafeng Industry

Location

Haikou, Hainan, China

Opened

October, 2022

Role on the project

Lead Design & Art Direction

23 colourful flower-like sculptures scatter high up across the South Side of the atrium. Each unit is tilted at a different angle to create a flowing formation as if the flowers are being blown in the wind.

In the evening, programmable LED's light up the center of the flower like a lantern, and dozens of LED orbs dotted around the edges of the flowers evoke the characteristic of bioluminescent sea-life. During the day, these flowers float weightlessly across the atrium space, catching the sunlight in their pink, bowl-like, polycarbonate surfaces.

There are 3 unique flower shapes, 2-3.5m in diameter, in the composition of Suspended Canopies, precisely positioned to create a perfect, sweeping concave formation, and to fill the south side of the atrium.

In pursuit of using materials that convey weightlessness, each flower has a molded polycarbonate surface and structural ribs made from forged aluminium. Each flower has three suspension cables that set its tilt in space.