Hasta La Ideas

Japanese design studio Nendo has created a gold-coloured Christmas tree for the Tokyo Midtown shopping centre in Roppongi, Tokyo, with kinetic cutouts designed to resemble “sparkling lights”.

The 7.5-metre-high tree, which sits in the middle of the shopping centre, has a polyhedral surface made from flat metal panels that have been bolted together to form a pyramid.

Behind the panels, which have fluttering star-shaped cutouts, sit 416 compact fans. These were programmed to move the panels in patterns up, down and across the tree.

“The pieces not only sway and move with the wind but can also stop swinging in the air catching the wind at the programmed timing,” Nendo said. “By continuously receiving a certain amount of airflow, the pieces also float upward in a sustained manner.”

The patterned cutouts, which Nendo said resemble “sparkling lights”, appear to swirl around the tree or create a rhythmic pattern that moves up and down the conical installation.

Matching cutouts in the same colour, described by Nendo as a “matte champagne gold”, were hung from the ceiling elsewhere in the shopping centre.

These pieces, which comprise both the cutout stars and the squares from which they were cut, can be seen on Tokyo Midtown’s garden terrace as well as in its galleria and atrium terraces.

“The theme glitter in the air translates to creating the uplifting and shimmering atmosphere, the very essence of Christmas, by literally generating ‘glitters’ by ‘air’,” Nendo said of the decorative ornaments.

Nendo, which creates both architecture and products, recently unveiled an archive to house its products and furniture that was made from precast concrete box culverts.

The studio also designed the Tokyo 2020 Olympic cauldron, which opened up to reveal a hydrogen-powered Olympic flame and was among seventeen designers to reimagine fashion house Dior’s Medallion chair for Milan design week 2021.

The photography is by Takumi Ota and the video is by Bird and insects.

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