Glowing Tree’s Installation
IFC, Hong Kong
2015-2016
“To go beyond the typical 2d decoration and to identify the essential and fundamental elements of the holiday and then reinterpret them to create playful spatial moments that promote human interaction.”
Team: Erik Amir, Dora Chi, Herman Chan, Jason Loo, Ryo Otsuka
Photography: Alan Chan
Hong Kong is a groundless city lacking activated public space, the Glowing Trees seek to transform the Oval Atrium by fostering an assembly of a large catchment of potential users. The site’s position as a pivotal intersection of transportation node and mixed-use program is a point of reference for many who pass through this site on a day-to-day basis. The trees’ kinetic motion, as it moves up and down, allows for surprise programmatic reveals on multiple stages defined via the pleated fabric. Spontaneous reaction is further supported by each of the tree’s playful materiality, striated color palette, and interior reflective forms allowing users to gaze and then capturing the moment to share through today’s mobile technologies.
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.
