Cinimod developed a concept inspired by Itsu’s butterfly motif which was brought to life as an animated visible sculpture.    The dynamic form is based upon the cinematic motion of a butterfly’s wings as it takes flight.

This was modelled as a continuous sequence in 3D software and then sliced at time intervals to determine the evolving angled shapes which comprise the final artwork.

The illusion of the butterfly’s flight is completed by the bespoke software controlling the colour of each wing, allowing for the illuminated and highly visible ‘fluttering’ of butterflies through the piece.

The final result is a surreal and ephemeral lighting sculpture that provides an adventurous and effective addition to the Itsu store design.

Related Projects:

The Itsu “Butterfly in Flight” is an example of Cinimod Studio’s fascination with the fusion of lighting and architectural materials.  Other examples of such integrated artworks include the Interactive Tableaux and the UFO projects.

The kiosk layout is comprised of several main elements: the kidney-shaped service island, the long banquette seating, and the tables and stools. The main island is a striking organic form with a continuously undulating surface that is studded with LED ‘dimples’.

The seating area provides a welcome oasis of calm and luxury for visitors to stop and enjoy their Snogs, with a ten metre long banquette giving shelter from the hustle and bustle of other shoppers. The tables are topped with bright Snog flower graphics created by Ico Design, while Marcel Wonder’s shiitake mushroom stools have again been used, contributing to the air of surrealism and serenity already present in the other stores.

The main kiosk structure is fabricated from composite materials selected for their combination of flexibility and durability. A fusion between computer controlled cutting processes and skilled hand carving and finishing allowed Cinimod Studio to achieve a continuously curving organic form.

The dimples are hemispherical depressions carved within the surface, in which LED nodes are located. Each of these lights is individually controllable, creating perpetually changing light patterns that gently swirl around the kiosk.

Cinimod Studio was responsible for the overall design of the kiosk, working with specialist fabricators and suppliers from England, Austria and the Far East. As per many of the studio’s projects, certain components were developed specifically for the project.

The Snog kiosk serves as a strong example of the benefit of the integrated lighting and architectural design that Cinimod Studio strive to bring to each project, and the studio’s ability to deliver the correct mix of technologies to achieve the final physical result.

Project Credits:

Architecture & Lighting: Cinimod Studio

Branding & Graphics: Ico Design

Main Contractor: Alan Nuttall Ltd.

Client: Snog Pure Frozen Yogurt

Related:

The Snog kiosk at Westfield builds upon our on-going architectural and lighting design work for Snog, as seen in the Snog Pure Frozen Yogurt Stores at South Kensington and Soho.

Cinimod Studio have successfully completed their commission by New York artist Peter Coffin for the technical design, build and delivery of a UFO to be used in Coffin’s unique high-altitude public art performance.

This is the second time the UFO has made a public appearance. It first appeared over the city of Gdansk, Poland, in July 2008. Since then it has been significantly upgraded, and for Rio it featured an additional 150kg of bespoke lighting equipment to create an even greater visual impact.

The night time flight over Rio De Janeiro had been extensively publicised in advance, and an estimated 500,000 spectators assembled on the five beaches of Rio to witness the UFO. As the UFO approached, the gathered masses rushed towards the water, screaming and shouting with excitement, amidst a wave of sparkling flash photography.

The overall UFO structure is 7 metres in diameter and manufactured of aluminium for lightness. A massive array of bright and individually controllable Color Kinetics LED nodes have been placed across the structure and are controlled via a Pharos LPX solid state computer. A network of bespoke ‘beacon’ lights, developed for this project by Cinimod Studio and White Wing Logic, encompass the perimeter of the UFO and are responsible for the orbiting sparkle of light around the main UFO structure.

An on board 6 kw generator provides the system power, and the overall UFO can be remotely controlled via SMS messaging. The UFO is flown through the sky, suspended under a helicopter 20 metres above — however, the helicopter itself is never visible during the flight, further adding to the mystique of the UFO.

Ten days of preparation on-site in Rio were undertaken by a Cinimod Studio team of three, comprised of director Dominic Harris, Nick Cheung, and Mike Harrison (of White Wing Logic). Operating from a top secret airport hangar they directed a local team of 15 people on the assembly, pre-flight preparation, and coordination required for the successful UFO flight.

Cinimod Studio already has a reputation for creating innovative lighting and structural designs, but with the UFO project design director Dominic Harris has taken lighting design to new heights. Harris says “we have pushed the envelope on the UFO, and it has required a remarkable fusion of technologies and design disciplines in order to make this happen.”

On the collaborative process Harris says “working with Peter Coffin has been a rewarding experience — his artistic vision for the project has remained clear and ambitious from the start, and he has pushed us to achieve it. The result is a fantastic collaboration between art and technology.”

Additional Video Links On-line:

BBC News,  ITN,  Video Globo (First preview feature), Video Globo (Includes aerial footage from chase copters), RJTV (preview feature before flight), RJTV (Later preview), MSN Video, NECN, EBRU

Project Credits, Sponsors and Organisers

Commissioned and produced by Open Art Projects: A non-profit foundation devoted to contemporary art which produces projects, materialises artistic concepts, organises exhibitions, and pursues publishing activities. www.openartprojects.org

Curator: Kasia Redzisz

Electrical Engineering by White Wing Logic.  www.whitewing.co.uk

Local production by Vianapole. www.vianapole.com.br

Support from the Secretary of Culture of the State Of Rio de Janeiro.

Project Sponsor: Oi (Brazilian phone network). www.novaoi.com.br

Official website (in Portuguese) for the project: www.discovoador.art.br

Cinimod’s design builds upon the brand identity created by ico Design and evolves the strong architectural vision created in the first store SNOG South Kensington, while introducing a different ‘quirk’ in the design: the bubbling ceiling. This lighting feature is comprised of 700 glass globes containing LED lights and presents a new level of visual excitement and public engagement.

Under this effervescent ceiling, a gleaming white counter reaches almost the full length of the store, presenting the assorted fresh and baked Snog toppings within an elegant glass cabinet. Marcel Wander’s Shitake stools have once again been used for the seating, arranged around bespoke tables.  Towards the rear of the store the curved super-pink walls meets the icy-cold glass wall which provides the canvas for seasonal works by guest artists.

Project Credits:

Architecture and Lighting Design: Cinimod Studio

Branding and Graphics: ICO Design

Main Contractor: Vivid Interiors

Digital Lighting Installation: E-Luminate

Architectural Lighting: Deltalight

Feature Lighting: Cinimod Studio (bespoke product)

Related:

This forms part of our on-going architectural and lighting design work for Snog, as seen in the Snog Pure Frozen Yogurt Stores at South Kensington and Westfield Shopping Centre.

‘Beacon’ is a kinetic light installation with a mind of its own. An array of emergency beacon lights interacts with visitors, tracking their movement through the space, creating an immersive and playful experience.

The installation exploits a transfer of technologies from existing industrial products. The beacon lights have had their internal parts replaced with custom hardware, enabling the rotation of the reflector and lamp brightness to be individually controlled. Thermal imaging cameras have been adapted to track the participants’ movement through the space.

‘Beacon’ is orchestrated in real-time by a bespoke control system, which uses tracking information from the cameras to coordinate an interactive and highly responsive behavior.

Credits:

Concept, Design and Production:  Cinimod Studio and Chris O’Shea

Electrical Engineering:  White Wing Logic.  Thermal Imaging: Thermitrack.

The artwork was inspired by the Restaurant and Bar Design Awards belief that “design excellence is up to you”, and using cutting edge technologies, the innovative lighting installation was brought to life by the collaborative interaction of the guests who used special punch cards to choreograph their own colour animations. These cards were ’scanned’ at a freestanding plinth located in one corner of the square, from where their colours were uploaded to the main globe to form the overall animated lighting display.

The launch event was attended by some of the top influential designers and industry press, as well as many curious members of the public. The installation was well received, and provided a delightful and engaging addition to the square. The artwork acted as a beacon of good design — key to the underlying message of the Restaurant and Bar Design Awards.

The Globe was constructed with a structural aluminium core and ribs, to which panels of Foamalux were fixed. An array of individually addressable Martin Professional LED fixtures provided the full colour illumination to the globe, and created the unique dappled light projections across Hoxton Square. A bespoke software programme, coded by Cinimod Studio in VVVV, controlled the overall installation.

For more information see the Restaurant & Bar Design Awards site.

For more information about the more recent 2009 Rio De Janeiro flight click here.

(video: Cinimod Studio)

(photo: Peter Turo)

The UFO flew in along the coast from the nearby town of Sopot, and then circled the centre of Gdansk. The UFO made its startling and surprising appearance soon after sunset. It appeared to be covered in lights displaying a series of geometric colour patterns. ”

(photo: Peter Turo)

“Untitled (UFO)” is an art project conceived by established New York artist Peter Coffin.  Cinimod Studio was hired to realise the project, and produced an innovative structural, technical and electrical design and oversaw the fabrication and assembly.  The UFO made its inaugural public appearance on 4th July 2008 as a part of the Festival of Stars in Gdansk, Poland.

(photo: Dominic Harris)

Cinimod Studio already has a reputation for creating innovative lighting and structural designs, but with the UFO project design director Dominic Harris has quite literally pushed the envelope and taken lighting design to new heights. The photos and video links published here are record photograph of the preparation and the flights, and have not been modified beyond basic colour and exposure corrections.

(photos: Dominic Harris)

To realise the UFO, Cinimod Studio worked closely with a multitude of specialist suppliers, and monitored the progress via regular workshop visits. A “transfer of technologies” saw electronic and mechanical designs developed for a standard application re-appropriated and modified for integration within the UFO project.

(photo: Michal Szlaga)

The overall UFO structure is 7 metres in diameter and manufactured of aluminium for lightness. 3000 bright and individually controllable Color Kinetics LED nodes have been arrayed across the structure and are controlled via a solid state computer. An on board 6 kw generator provides the system power, and the overall UFO can be remotely controlled via SMS messaging.

Credits

Artist Peter Coffin has created a truly phenomenal artwork which due to the scale, complexity and sheer audacity of the project, would not have been possible without the support of a number of key sponsors and suppliers. Primary sponsorship came from Warsaw’s Open Art Project and New York’s Art Production Fund. The LED lighting was sponsored by Color Kinetics / Philips.

The overall physical and lighting design and coordination was by Cinimod Studio, with Mike Harrison of White Wing Logic providing the electrical systems design and on-site electrical engineering. A special thank you is also extended to LiteStructures, Architainment, Pharos Controls, Harrington Generators, the Gdansk Shipyard, the festival organisers, and the pilots responsible for the safe take-off and landing of the UFO!

The series debuts with two panels:  “October Landscape” (1200 x 450mm) which is a journey through London captured digitally as a time-stretched record of the city lights and colours”, and “October Square” (700 x 700mm) which is study of colour and virtual shadows.

The panels are comprised of a highly engineered build-up of 4 different glass types, LEDs, embedded electronic control, and aluminium.

UPDATE:  A new edition of the October Panels is being prepared for autumn 2010 that will feature a new embedded interactive control system.  Details to be posted soon.

Working closely with the client, StudioUribe, and the branding agency ICO Design, Cinimod Studio has designed a store that is excitingly fresh, and with a unique digital twist.  The concept was to evoke the feeling of a perfect never-ending summer. The interior is deliberately quirky, with a photographic grass floor and a ‘digital sky’ which adjusts the mood of the store perpetually throughout the day and evenings.

The primary interior surfaces are all of standard architectural finishes that have been ‘tweaked’ to perform new design functions.  The seamlessly printed ‘grass’ floor is a commercial first, as is the digital ceiling with its fully integrated services.  For the white glass walls ICO Design has created a graphic interpretation of British flowers.  At ground level, the ‘Shitake’ stools from Moroso, designed by Marcel Wanders, work with the bespoke marble tables on turned wood bases to create a contemporary and relaxed take on garden furniture.

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SNOG is the first store to feature a fully digital ceiling, which has been seamlessly inserted as a key element within the design.   Over 3,000 individually controllable LEDs have been deployed behind a Barrisol stretched plastic ceiling in order to create a bright light box video surface.  Digitally captured and manipulated clouds move gently across the store, with their colour and speed determined by the time of day.

Click here for more photographs of the Snog Pure Frozen Store.   SNOG was also recently front cover of Design Week – see full story here.

In addition to designing the first store now open, Cinimod Studio is delighted to have been appointed as the lead architect and lighting designer for the future SNOG stores, opening soon across London.

For more information, visit the official website www.ifancyasnog.com, or even better why not stop in for a Snog? It’s all happening at 32 Thurloe Place, South Kensington.

Design Consultants:

Architecture and Lighting : Cinimod Studio Ltd.

In design collaboration with : StudioUribe

Branding and Graphic Design : ICO Design

A/V Design and Installation : Inspired Dwellings

The first version of this artwork was as in a table format. It is manufactured from the highest quality materials, and is scalable by design to any required size. An embedded solid-state bespoke control system provide a reliable and maintenance free real-time interactive and responsive control. The table can also operate in a ‘generative art’ mode where it uses algorithms to create a intriguing and perpetually shifting pattern of colours.

Using a combination of specifically chosen glass types, a virtually boundless sense of space is created within the physical confine of the white glass box. A three-dimensional matrix of individually controlled globes of light extends in each direction, controlled interactively by the movement of people and objects around the table.

Please also see my interactive wall panels.