INSTALLATION: FLORALIES Internationales – France
Site: Chabotterie estate in VENDÉE
Year 2024
Green Sailing Unfolded at the 13es Floralies Internationales – Nantes
2nd prize , ‘Jeux de Fleurs’ category
With: URGES s.r.l
Design Assistants: Sara Novarese, Michele Ripamonti, Sara Santambrogio
Timber Structure: Andrea gaspari
Green Decoration: Aster Genova
Client: Porto Antico Genova
CONCEPT
As a preview of Euroflora 2025, Tthe installation “Green Sailing Unfolded” was designed and realized for Porto Antico di Genova Spa at the 13th Floralies International in Nantes. It interprets the event’s general theme, ‘Plant Games,’ by developing a green installation that evokes the paper boats we all made as children.
The resemblance to origami is obvious, a clear and “iconic” image, with a predominantly visual value, but capable of occupying its own space, acquiring a tactile dimension, and constantly interacting with the user. The sheet of paper from which it originates represents a material that is by definition light and thin, devoid of any structural characterization; the fold, the artificial operation that brings previously distant surfaces closer together, gives this light material its own spatial conformation. In the project, this strategy is interpreted as a gradual transition from the mass of the ground to the lightness of the air, transposing the green elements into an elegant structure pointing towards the sky.
The Design proposal is the a result of reflection on different ideas and suggestions. It aims to present a synthesis of multiple images representing or referring to such reflections in different ways.
The ideas behind the project are:
– Game, considered in its general meaning not only as a process of construction and growth, but also as a call to simplicity.
– Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games
– Genoa with its sea and its winds
– Euroflora 2025 which has already developed a concept design and a Masterplan based on strong keywords, images and topics.
Starting from these suggestions, the project identifies a sailing boat as a symbol of this synthesis, and its typical representation made with folded paper, — as a reference to “game/play”. From this image the design develops a process of abstraction that decomposes the paper folds into fragments, reflecting them on both vertical and horizontal planes. The final image therefore suggests to the visitor the idea of this very simple and common game and at the same time it encourages the referencing to more complex images that talk about lightness, ground and movement.
Specifically, the installation is conceived as a timber structure. the ground is modeled employing shaped wooden panels that give shape to an array of surfaces. This thick base refers to the sea surface and supports the metamorphosis of a paper boat into an abstract image. The forenamed is decomposed to triangular fragments also made of wood, self-sustained, which rising from the horizontal plane evoke both the image of a hull and of the sails.
The green and floral decoration, while interacting with a background structure, is essential and provides arranging small plants of selected colors that will interact with the structure. In this game of the parts ,a “boat” structure is designed to accommodate and elevate vegetation up to the highest level.
In October 2024 the Installation was relocated to Genova, Piazza Fontane Marose
