Shanghai, China
Designed by architecture studio Wutopia Lab, “Arrival” is a temporary urban installation commissioned by TOPYS which wanted to create a focal point within the Star Plaza area, in Shanghai.
Star Plaza is a place compressed between the back of The MixC shopping mall and the north parking garage, with a subway entrance and exit on the square.
The aim was to redefine an ambiguous site by implanting a definite Palladium in an ambiguous site in the manner of Marguerite or Roland Emmerich.
“It also had to have the maximum volume that the budget would allow, and in the uncertain daylight of Shanghai, black became my very choice. I decided to design a light huge black BDO,” says Wutopia Lab.
The weight is only 650 kg (the same volume of water would be 63,000 kg). But being light can also be unstable.
Roboticplus.AI has been calculated to join the steel structure (and also the stairs) to stabilize the base, the total weight ends up being two tons.
It meets the requirement that a floor of 9 square meters can only withstand 3.15 tons.
So it was agreed to 3D print an ABS black BDO with a robot.
The black BDO is a symbolist installation that is simultaneously an expression of divinity and humanity.
Inside the silent black rectangular structure is an abstract karst cave that you need to explore, climb and then see a yellow sinkhole from where the sun shines over your head, and you will be in a moment of trance and contemplate the meaning of your existence in this busy city.
The black body of the installation can be decomposed, and the yellow color hidden inside will be peeled out and shine.
The disintegrated body is not strictly limited to a secular place, and the joy of the human world floats in this temporarily limited place.
The interior of the black BDO is inspired by the book “Underland”, while the exterior is inspired by the Stargate, a tool that allows us to briefly arrive at a retreat from reality as a result.
Arrival is 3D printed by the ROBIM platform that connects the design side and the factory side through Roboticplus.AI to achieve design-build interconnection, combining parametric design and space printing digital construction technology.
Arrival is actually a silent installation expressing all the messages and ideas that the architects wanted to convey to the city and its inhabitants in a theatrical language like a mime.
It is a temporary urban monument about the future that can be accessed.
Project: Arrival
Architects: Wutopia Lab
Lead Architect: Yu Ting
Project Architect: Pu Shengrui, Liang Zee
Constructor: RoboticsPlus.AI
Client: ToPYS
Photographers: CreatAR Images
