The Gwangju Swarms installation by NADAAA was designed as part of the Urban Folly Exhibit, 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale. The installation site is characterized by a road crossing with a diverse set of scales and building types that anchor each corner, a site in transition. Inhabiting this corner, the installation is chameleonic; encrytped within the logic of the branches, a seemingly animated structure floats overhead, peeking around the corners giving body to the space that was once occupied by the city wall. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Its width does not display the possibility of an intervention of any scale or gravitas. Its ground is strewn with infrastructure: electrical posts, sewer connections, street lights, and other technical paraphernalia that refute the possibility of inhabiting or redefining the ground. In turn, the street edge is defined by a row of trees, delicately placed within the remaining spaces such that their roots may find some traction as they navigate the corner.
