Atmospheric Tessellation: Wellington, New Zealand.

  Winter festivals are found in most cultures that have a discernible winter. They are usually about celebrating the harvest. The LUX Festival however, as the name implies, celebrates light. A string of art installations, using light, were located in the city of Wellington, shining the penetrating beam of high culture into some of the city's dark recesses, alleys, and generally interesting nooks that are not normally on the tourist map. This year, a particularly interesting project called Atmospheric Tessellation, was developed by the Bond University Architecture Fabrication Research Lab, led by Chris Knapp, Jonathan Nelson, and Michael Parsons. In what is probably the windiest city in the world, the project caused something of a storm. Using Grasshopper and Rhino to generate and distribute 220 'barnacles' over a double curved surface, the designers were able to make late changes to the scheme right-up to the files being emailed to New Zealand ready for routing and assembly. The structure was created using 17mm plywood, with a bracing skin from 9mm ply. The shades, were laser cut from polypropylene into which the light sources were placed. The structure took a couple of days to fabricate and assemble by the Bond team, assisted by Garth Waymouth, Jorle Weisen, Ambrose Kelly, Andrew Steele, Paggy Shen and Mica Hubertus.