PROJECTS

Design Islands

Cultural artifact, open frameworks, and space-making devices

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Design Islands are an interactive, graphic, spatial construct, an urban installation, and a space-making device that provides communal seating for both indoor and outdoor settings, highlighting the complexity posed by the superimposition of Indigenous, settler, and visitor cultures in Hawai‘i. The system holds a unique identity while serving as a platform to showcase the work of others.

BACKGROUND

Design Islands was commissioned for the inaugural Building Voices event and served to embody our emerging understanding of the complexities of the Hawaiian context. Informed by geopolitics, the evolution of design languages, and imposed/ vernacular mental models defining space, this project embodies our exploration for other modes of spatialization. A set of architectural constructs perform as both object and subject. The resulting geometries, open to multiple interpretations, pose a coded system of orientation that questions the nature of the orthogonal and the diagonal.

AWARDS & DISSEMINATION

2017 AIA Honolulu Award, Institutional

2017 ACSA Fall Conference in Marfa, TX
2017 World Design Summit in Montreal, Canada.

Installed at the Hawaiʻi State Capitol (04/22/17), the Hawaiʻi Convention Center for the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Hōkūleʻa welcome event (06/20/17), the UHM SoA for Building Voices Housing for All (09/30-10/01/19).

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Hawai‘i State Capitol Earth Day 2017

Building Voices, Hawai‘i State Capitol Earth Day 2017

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Design Islands welcomes the Hōkūleʻa after circumnavigating the globe at the Polynesian Voyaging Society Benefit Gala held at the Honolulu Convention Center. The Wishing Wall was sponsored by Hawaiian Airlines, June 20, 2017.

Design Islands welcomes the Hōkūleʻa after circumnavigating the globe at the Polynesian Voyaging Society benefit gala held at the Honolulu Convention Center. The Wishing Wall was sponsored by Hawaiian Airlines, June 20, 2017.

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Production Team
Mike Poscablo, Marshall Prather, Crysta Alcantar, Keola Annino, Chloe Bennie, Josephine Briones, Calvin Bulan, Stephanie Cass, Austin Chun, Marcos Cruz-Ortiz, Kathleen Eagan, Tyler Francisco, Christopher Gaydosh, Celeste Guarin, Jason Hashimoto, Kristoffer Jugueta, Creesha Layaden, Jacob Marsicek, Shelby Mendes, Blair Muraoka, Melise Nekoba, Khoa Nguyen, James Noh, Rebecca Ogi, Katherine Pananganan, Jonathan Quach, Gladys Razos, Poutasi Seiuli, Siraj Sheri, Christopher Songvilay, Bryson Tabaniag, Ivy Tejada, My Tran, Morgan Wynne, Kristyn Yamamotoya, Noelle Yempuku, Han Ming Yu

Supported in part by
UHM School of Architecture Advancement Fund
Haigo and Irene Shen Architecture Gallery

Project Type
Installation Design for the UHM School of Architecture

Thanks
UHM School of Architecture, Fabrication Lab Director, Steve Hill
University of Hawaiʻi President David Lassner and Keala Monaco for supporting the Wishing Wall installation


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