The gorgeous Golden Moon Pavilion popped up in Hong Kong for the Mid-Autumn Festival, which attracted 500,000 visitors over the course of 6 days. Designed by Laboratory for Explorative Architecture & Design (LEAD), the fiery Golden Moon is made from a steel geodesic dome, bamboo scaffolding, fabric panels and LED lights – and it’s designed as an expression of love and passion referencing the legend of the Moon Goddess.
LEAD combined digital fabrication techniques with local craftsmanship to construct the pavilion in only 11 days. LEAD’s Golden Moon Pavilion offers a new take on traditional Chinese lanterns, and it’s an expression of the romantic legend of Chang’e, the Moon Goddess of Immortality, who can only visit her earthbound husband Houyi on the full moon of the Mid-Autumn Festival.
To symbolize their passionate love, LEAD created a giant fiery moon covered in abstract flame fabric panels that are lit with LED lights and hanging lanterns. Set in a reflection pool, the pavilion lit up the night sky and immersed visitors in a dazzling show of light and sound.
In order to ensure they could construct the structure, LEAD first designed the structure digitally and optimized all the components to ensure the assembly was easily accomplished by the construction team. The structure is composed of a 6-storey high geodesic steel dome, which is covered in bamboo scaffolding hand attached to the skeleton using traditional building techniques.
The digital design optimized size and shape of fabric panels, which were attached to the frame and then uniquely bent to create what appears to be a more random pattern. LED Lights and lanterns hung inside light up the pavilion like a floating lantern on the water. Golden Moon is an amazing example of the intersection of digital design technology and traditional building techniques. LEAD’s accomplishment shows that digital design allows for complex geometry structures built at high speed and low cost using simple methods.