3D printed design to revitalize Star Plaza in Shanghai
Chinese architecture studio Wutopia Lab has designed a 3D-printed temporary installation to animate the Star Plaza at The MixC, Shanghai, China.
Design Features
The project was commissioned by TOPYS in collaboration with RoboticplusAI to inaugurate a magical realistic installation with 3D printing in the plaza, and the design was named Access.
Located between the back of The MixC and the north parking garage,
with a subway entrance and exit into the plaza,
the new installation is also an attempt by the Wutopia Lab project to revive small urban spaces.
TOPYS wanted to invite Wutopia Lab to create an installation here that would revitalize social communication by turning into a purely traffic site,
and revitalizing Star Plaza Since there is a subway under Star Plaza, the floor slab loading capacity is only 3.5 kN per square meter.
TOPYS also wanted social stabilization to be functional and indicative.
Technology and art
The designer stood in the middle of Star Plaza and felt a little confused.
The sense of the place stripped everything he knew, the place wasn’t Shanghai,
it was as if he was standing in a mysterious place in any city, not even at that point in 2021.
Inspired by this feeling to explore some future possibilities and science fiction,
the designer decided to redefine a mysterious site by planting a specific palladium in a mysterious site along the lines of Marguerite or Roland Emmerich.
It also had to have the maximum size that the budget would allow,
and in the uncertain daylight of Shanghai, black became my primary choice,
so he decided to design a massive, light black BDO.
The designer contacted Roboticplus.AI and thought that it is possible to create a large volume of 3 * 3 * 7 using 3D printing technology,
and the weight is only 650 kg (the same volume of water would be 63,000 kg.
Roboticplus.AI is calculated to join the steel structure (as well as the stairs) to stabilize the base,
and the total weight eventually comes to two tons.
It meets the requirement that a floor of 9 square meters can bear only 3.15 tons,
so it was agreed to 3D print ABS black BDO using a robot, I call it Arrival.
BDO. Access
Arriving on the plaza, the black BDO is a symbolic installation that is at the same time an expression of divinity and humanity.
Also, inside the silent rectangular black body there is an abstract karst cave that you need to explore,
climb up and then see a yellow hole from where the sun rises over your head,
and you will be in a moment of ecstasy and think about what it means to be in this crowded city.
At this moment, the descending black BDO is the sacred space of this secular city.
Interestingly, the black rectangular object can decompose again, and the yellow color hidden inside will peel off and sparkle.
The disintegrated body is not confined to a secular place,
and the joy of the human world floats in this temporarily limited place,
and the disjointed black obelisk is the space of desire in this secular city.
The black BDO’s interior is inspired by the book “Underland”,
while the exterior is inspired by Stargate, a tool that gives us brief access to a retreat from reality as a result.
It’s also 3D printed and appears to be man-made,
but it’s actually not out of human hands, the important thing is
that its arrival will activate a common space on the edge.
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