UFOs or jellyfish? Chinese practice Daxing Jizi Design unveiled four glowing pavilions for Shenzhen’s 3rd Public Urban Festival that playfully riffed on futuristic fantasy and underwater organisms.

On show at Longgang Vanke Plaza, the four lightweight structures are inspired by organic architecture and are illuminated at night, encouraging visitors to stop and linger in the public space. They feature orange metal frames and translucent ‘film’ canopies, which can be inflated or deflated to respond to the weather.

Says the practice: ‘”Floating Pavilions” draws inspiration from ancient marine plankton the jellyfish. Inspired by the jellyfish’s graceful umbrella-like form and various colours, the installations focuses on creating a free space for “floating thoughts” and a surreal experience of light.’

The pavilions’ bright colours and globular forms are designed to elicit emotion, wonder and a sense of relaxation, blending realism and abstraction.

Each pavilion has an opening on the underside where people can enter, gazing up into the umbrella interior of the structure, lit up with calming gradients of colour that emote relaxation, or ‘deceleration’ – encouraging users to pause and immerse themselves in the spectrum.

The lighting design uses full-spectrum RGB lamps, allowing colours to slowly shift over time and replicating a rhythmic ‘breathing’ frequency, set at every six seconds, which mimics the floating rhythm of deep-sea jellyfish and human breathing.

[via ArchDaily]

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