Kilpi is the third installation in a series of sculptures inspired by traditional Nordic Sami huts. The installations provide the opportunity to experiment, test and build, potential solutions of digital design and fabrication. The result is an architecture that brings a contemporary spirit to a natural material and provides an example of space and shelter in its most basic form. The fabrication and assembly methods are unashamedly exposed to be thought-provoking and educational, allowing visitors to understand how the piece was made.

Walking around the structure, the viewer is immediately consumed by the contrast, as well as an uncanny similarity, of natural and unnatural. Its simple geometry and patterns of intersecting panels flutter between transparency and opaqueness. The perforated wooden screen provides both shelter from the cityscape and casts intricate shadows onto visitors.

The installation’s intricate perforations are based upon celestial maps and represent the constellations found in the skies above Canary Wharf. Playing with only the natural light available, the perforations create ever-changing dappled shadows, projecting the celestial map onto the landscape.