Bamboo 竹Ring :|| Weaving a Symphony of Lightness and Form. Kengo Kuma + Oppo e London Design Festival, curated by Clare Farrow. Cortile dei Bagni - Università degli Studi di Milano.

Bamboo 竹Ring :|| Weaving a Symphony of Lightness and Form. A project by Kengo Kuma made by Oppo in partnership with London Design Festival. Sound Design Musicity/Midori Komachi. With Komatsu Matere, Jayhawk Fine Art.

Cortile dei Bagni - Università degli Studi di Milano

Kengo Kuma

“By interweaving natural and technological materials, mingling the avant-garde of sound with an architectural ring structure to make it a vibrant texture, stimulating a futuristic experience in the historic Cortile dei Bagni designed by Filarete. All this expresses our concept of Creative Connections: the construction of disciplinary bridges that bring people into contact with emotions.” This is how Kengo Kuma explained the meaning of his installation created with Oppo and in partnership with the London Design Festival. In September 2019, the Japanese architect had already made a large outdoor installation at the V&A Museum, curated by Clare Farrow, which showed how bamboo and carbon fiber rings could be fused to create strong, light, flexible, self-supporting structures. This same “material of the future”, sustainable and resistant to earthquakes, a possible alternative to concrete and steel, has now been taken to the next level of development, by engrafting digital sounds onto floor-mounted platforms that create a musical architectural landscape developed with the violinist Midori Komachi. The score she elaborated, with Oppo's technologies transformed by the sound of her violin (made in Milan in 1920 and modified with the inclusion of carbon fiber elements) is inspired by the four seasons and layered with effects evoking nature, in the vision of a humanized technological aesthetic, relaxing and a source of positivity.