all images courtesy of Spatial Practice

Award-winning Architectural office, Spatial Practice completed a site-specific installation in Hong Kong, titled 'Glowing Trees'. These sculptures include a series of 10 site-specific spatial installations that create a journey of the holiday season provoking emotions of anticipation, discovery, and sharing. Each installation piece is inspired from traditional elements of Christmas and spatially interpreted to allow visitors to engage and capture memories while promoting public space, experience, and human interaction. 

The installation’s choreographed up-and-down kinetic motion allows for a sculptural composition of the trees to remain in dynamic flux, forcing the passer-by to slow down to appreciate the installation with other strangers and seasonal revelers. Multiple access points from various levels, allow for as many perspectives to view the project depending on how the installation site is approached from multiple floor levels. Each tree’s striated hues are selected to become darker as it reaches the top of the form and is composed of 2,174 strips of fabric, which were hand sewn, pleated, and assembled on the form of each tree. Custom-patterned hand-woven carpets provide a colorful base while hanging mirrored balls are composed to provide a unique internalized experience inside each cone.

Viewing the Oval Atrium as a public plaza in the city – the design encourages public gathering and temporary performances. The main sculpture consists of seven out-of-scale trees that hang across Hong Kong IFC’s iconic Oval Atrium. Arrival from every floor, the kinetic installation redefine the visitors relationship to the Atrium as each handcrafted fabric cone moves up and down between the floors over a hand-woven carpeted platform.

The underside of each cone reveals a unique universe to be discovered by visitors. The installation offer different types of spatial engagements – inviting the public to wander between, lay underneath, and gather around. The largest 13 meter tall tree is installed with a camera to capture selfie moments while the public can download, print and share their memories.

The Glowing Trees project aims to extend beyond the typical commercial interventions of this plaza space by taking advantage of the site as a decompression point in a very dense and generally stressful urban environment. The installation celebrates its cultural positioning by relying on the interaction of strangers with the site, in effect allowing many to revel the “joy” associated with the Winter Season.

“We looked at Glowing Trees as an opportunity to promote public-oriented creativity,” explains Dora Chi, “Naturally, we that felt the IFC’s Oval Atrium functioned both as a city plaza, and a spatial focal point in Hong Kong, for travelers, locals, and holiday shoppers.”

“We used the same methodologies, for Glowing Trees, as with any of our other urban public projects,” says Erik Amir, “The project encourages human interaction, by going beyond the typical approach of shopping mall installation, in order to create spatial moments where visitors can truly engage.”

Project Facts

Architect: Spatial Practice

Client: IFC

Location: Hong Kong

Program: Installation

Status: Completed (2015)

Project Team: Erik Amir, Dora Chi, Herman Chan, Jason Loo, Ryo Otsuka

> via Spatial Practice