Program: 1,600 sqm MOCA Shanghai Terrace Installation
Location: Shanghai, China
Client: : MOCA Shanguai

Status: Completed 2012

Credits: Alvin Huang, Neil Leach, Wendy Fok, USC AAC Students : Ethan

Barley, Chi Bhatia, Gabby Gertel, Ty Harrison, Luya He, Justin Kang, Michelle Kraintz, Arjun Mahesh, Nicole Stizel, Yimeng Wang, Sahar Youdai, Chaoxun Zhang, Xiaoyun Li, Xiaojin Mi, Xinyue (Amber) Ma

This installation reinterprets the Chinese garden to activate the MOCA roof terrace as an undulating and responsive landscape that simultaneously produces gradient spatial conditions and framed viewing portals which curate views of the surrounding hi-rise towers. This canopy examines the potential of gravity forces to derive geometry by relaxing a net, in which every web member reveals its load path, expressing its catenary form in multiple dimensions. The final installation was realized through a series of tensioned net structures and shrink-wrapped skins. The undulating landscape is embedded with color-changing LED’s connected to motion sensors, with color changing responses to express intensities of occupation. The highly successful installation activated the previously under-utlized roof terrace into a popular summer evening destination.
It also became a civic landmark viewable from surrounding highrise towers.