Crocheting has come back into fashion, and the old handmade craft which used to be considered as something only our grandmothers would do is now trending. Now not only fashion lovers can get all bohemian with sieve clothes, and interior designers with nifty home decorations. Crochet has also found its way into more unique art forms, from which one of them is architecture.
A perfect example of this”grandma’s hobby” and its mixing into the urban life are three giant crochet sea urchins that appeared floating above the Singapore’s Marina Bay.
They are the result of great talent, imagination and hard work of 50 people, who have spent 2 long months twisting and braiding polyester chords and making them into natural flower designs to create a trio of magnificent giant urchins. Their construction is made out of metal, to which the chords are attached to. No wonder that a single urchin is about 56 feet (17 meters) in size and weighs about 220 pounds (100 kilograms). Made to interact with natural light during the day and glow when lit up at night, they are a grazing for the eyes for all the people who pass by.
The team behind the installation is the London and Seoul-based collective Choi+Shine Architects, who have created this design exclusively for the Singapore’s 2017 iLight Marina Bay Festival, Asia’s leading sustainable light art festival. This three-week event celebrates talents from all around the world, who together turn Marina Bay into a great work of illuminating art.
Seeing giant urchins hover in the dark, with modern skyscrapers in the background makes people stop and gaze and according to the designer, they are supposed to “give us an opportunity to find the poetry around us.”
They definitely create an unusual scene, in which the edges of the modern city and natural soft-textured materials mix, making it seem like these crocheted marine organisms have crawled from the sea onto the shore. In other words, they remind us of the amazing nature which continues to flourish alongside the spectacular modern city.
