During London Design Festival, the V&A Museum shows a series of 12 installations, using the possibilities of AI and sustainable materials.
Bamboo Ring
The Bamboo Ring by Kengo Kuma is an experiment in the concept of weaving, made of bamboo and carbon fibre. Both materials are well-known for their lightness, flexibility and strength. Bamboo has traditionally been used in Japanese architecture. The doughnut-shaped structure is made from strips of the bamboo Phyllostachys edulis. By combining carbon fibre, a contemporary material, with the ancient material of bamboo and laminating each ring, the resulting effect achieves a certain rigidity while maintaining the unique material properties and beauty of bamboo.
Bamboo Futures
Fittingly in the same week as World Bamboo Day, Bali-based designer Elora Hardy and her team at IBUKU also constructed a bamboo installation Bamboo Futures of miniature buildings, which they construct to scale around the world.
Non-Pavilion
A non-material installation exploring the issues of over-consumption, the Non-Pavilion can only be seen with Augmented Reality technology. Only the poles, rods, and wires are real. The installation consists of a series of digital pavilions by Leon Chew, Arne Hendriks, Leo Murray, LucienneRoberts+, Michael Schoner and Radical Norms.
Sacred Geometry
The glass installation by Rony Plesl draws inspiration from fire and wood, key components of glass making, and from the idea of Sacred Geometry, a universal language organising all visible and invisible reality according to basic geometrical principles.
The installation consists of tree trunks and branches made of uranium glass, a type of glass which, as the name says, contains uranium, giving it a green ghostly glow in UV light. The pieces were possible to produce thanks to new ground-breaking technology by the Czech company Bolety. This new technology enables casting of all 3D objects without any limitations in regards to design or form, giving cast glass the same possibilities as bronze for example.
For all London Design Festival installations, click here.
Photos via V&A Museum