KO OLINA Toyo Ito Architects
In 2014, architect Toyo Ito walked beneath INTERCONNECTION in Milan. He later asked if the work could become permanent: a mobile for a hotel renovation at Ko Olina, Hawai’i—forty meters tall, falling through a fourteen-story atrium, moved not by visitors but by wind and sun.
With his architects and lighting engineers, we mapped the sun across the site and drew the sea breeze up through the tower, so light and shadow would shift through the day and the space would stay connected to the sea. The design was carried to the end. Then the project changed hands, and the piece was never built.
The acrylic of Milan was remade in glass: with AGC (Asahi Glass), we developed discs strong and light enough to hang permanently—laminated with film so the color would never fade in the sun, and so a broken disc would hold safely together.
