This completed NWS piece sits above the Great Lounge in the Shangri-La Hotel in Hangzhou, China. The principle components are glass, stainless steel and aircraft cable, which includes the sculpture fabric itself, as well as the structural interface within the building structure.
The edge treatment of this piece was conceptually guided by the boundary edge of a Ginkgo leaf, meaning one side is smooth and the other is ruffled. This presented challenges when distorting both sides of the fabric, the reason being that one edge could not travel further than the other, incase the tubes broke under stress.
Purpose built grasshopper programs were used to help locate where tubes should transition from curved to straight and how quickly, it was often the kinks in the design which required the most attention.
This project was shipped from San Francisco to China in multiple sections and assembled using a complex nomenclature, with global and local labeling.
Company: Nikolas Weinstein Studio
Shangri-La Lounge Glass Sculpture
