Striking atrium artwork at Perth Children’s Hospital achieved through creative collaboration

Several talents came together to accomplish a unique floating flower artwork in the atrium of Perth Children’s Hospital and fulfil the artist’s creative vision.

Buoyant is the strikingly beautiful outcome of this collaboration, which included movement control and hardware custom made for this project with winches being designed and manufactured by Wahlberg of Denmark; design and fabrication of petals by Big Spoon Art Services; and design of the support frames and overarching certification of all structural elements by Wood and Grieve Engineers.

Working closely with artist Stuart Green, Light Application designed and programmed the movement control system and the lighting shows along with many other safety control features for the work.

Buoyant

Formed as two separate ‘flowers’, each 8m diameter with eight petals and each petal a three layered vacuum formed polycarbonate translucent ‘pillow’ with programmable LED lighting within, Buoyant was intended to create a joyous, playful and intriguing hospital environment unlike any other institutional building, with an internal space filled with a floating ballet of shapes.

Each petal is supported by three cables and three programmable winches. The 48 winches are programmed to move the petals through 24m of vertical space in a choreographed sequence throughout the day and evening. The 48 DMX controlled winches were custom made for this project. The lighting is powered via the supporting cables with wireless signal control to each petal.

The Buoyant artwork is intended to reduce stress and boredom among the hospital patients, staff and visitors alike, making for a more interesting environment that promotes faster healing and shorter hospital stays. Buoyant populates the tall atrium space at the hospital with large floating forms that silently drift throughout the entire vertical space.

Photography: Stuart Green