What keeps a system in balance when every element is in motion?
I grew up on a small island where nature was close—and so was its threat. Storms, quakes, the sea: you learn early that some forces answer to no human hand, and that living means finding a balance with them, not winning.
Client LEXUS
Year 2014
Event Milan Design Week
Location Circolo Filologico Milanese
Designers MIT Tangible Media Group Fabio Novembre Nao Tamura
Study model, Brooklyn studio. Every disc repositioned by hand until the whole could move as one.
Suspension points and lighting positions—the hanging plan for the room.
Fabrication at the model maker's studio—each disc shaped, mounted, and balanced by hand.
Final full-scale prototype—testing light and reflection on the discs.
Circolo Filologico Milanese, the venue.
Lexus asked for a piece on their theme, Amazing in Motion, for Milan in 2014. I wanted something people would feel before they understood it.
Special thanks:
Structure Engineer Takeshi Miyakawa Louis Lim
Sound Aya Nishina
Sound Engineer Fernando Aponte
Video Rei Yoshikawa
Walking through the installation.
Circolo Filologico Milanese, Milan Design Week 2014. Visitors set the piece in motion—the air they displace is enough.
Press one point, and the whole body sways. Remove one small leaf, and every balance fails. That is what I wanted people to feel, standing in that room.
The whole piece traveled in two boxes, carried by hand.
Detail: Acrylic discs on steel rods, suspended on thread. No motors—only air.
Making video by LEXUS / Rei Yoshikawa
The installation, packed and ready to fly. Milan, 2014.
![FLOW[T], WonderGlass. Design by Nao Tamura.](https://naotamura.com/img/2015/04/NaoTamura_IN_Flowt04-576x768.jpg "FLOW[T], WonderGlass. Design by Nao Tamura.")
