Hasta La Ideas

Canadian interior designers Mason Studio filled a warehouse with luminous clouds as a calming space amid the hustle and bustle of the Toronto Design Offsite Festival last month (+ slideshow).

Behind layers of scrunched-up tissue paper, the installation was filled with motion-sensitive devices that triggered a system of concealed lighting.

As visitors approached, each cloud would start to glow, but when that person walked away the lights would slowly die down.

“The installation was an attempt to pull festival goers out of the commotion and noise that inevitably surround design festivals, to provide a space of tranquil and rest, if even for a fleeting moment,” explains Mason Studio.

Gentle music accompanied the installation, helping to block out the noise from outside.

The Toronto Design Offsite Festival ran from 21 to 27 January as a showcase of the best in Canadian design. Projects on show included a matte steel sink with a polished patch in the centre that provides a mirror.

Clouds have inspired a number of design installations in recent years. Makoto Tanijiri of Suppose Design Office filled an exhibition with clouds back in 2009, while Tokujin Yoshioka filled a showroom with mist in 2011. See more weather-related design on Dezeen.

Photography is by Scott Norsworthy.

Here’s a few words from Mason Studio:

Mason Studio, the Toronto-based interior design firm, created a large series of gentle, cloud-like objects to form a site-specific installation nestled in a side-street warehouse. In part of Toronto Design Offsite Festival ’13, the installation was an attempt to pull festival goers out of the commotion and noise that inevitably surround design festivals, to provide a space of tranquil and rest, if even for a fleeting moment.

Fabricated from large sheets of semi-transparent tissue paper, the warehouse was engulfed with the billowing forms to submerge the visitors in a glow emulating the soft filtration of light by clouds at dusk. The ethereal installation was accompanied by a resonating soundscape, producing a numbing white noise to block any extraneous noises.

The motion-sensitive objects were reactive to the surrounding users and environment. Upon inspection, the forms gently intensified with light; walking away, they reverted back to neutral, leaving a trail of dark.

Soundscape produced by: aftermodernlab

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