Captain Starlight Rocket
Project Details
Location: VIVID Festival, Sydney
Completion Date: 2016
Size: 80 sqm
Fabric: PVC - Backlit Super Flex
Client: Lend Lease / Kevin Snell Architects
The Captain Starlight Rocket at the Vivid Festival 2016 in Sydney was 15 metre immersive art installation piece that aimed to shed light on the amazing work of the Starlight Children’s Foundation.
The Concept
Every day Captain Starlight travels in a rocket ship from Planet Starlight to every major children’s hospital in Australia to brighten the lives of seriously ill children by replacing fear and stress with joy and laughter.
As you enter the base of the rocket you enter another world – a giant 15 metre tall kaleidoscope together, with light, mirrors and sound.
Rising 15 metres into the air the LIGHT ROCKET glows from within and is docked with its accompanying light tower. Cloaked in a translucent fabric, low energy LED lighting lights the rocket from within and the light tower spotlights its body with roving beams. And from its nose cone, a laser light beam shoots into the sky lighting up the path to its next hospital location to visit.
The Materials
The fabric form required significant differential between the warp and weft as well as utilisation of the fabric seams acting as stiffened cable elements in order to reduce the inherent anticlastic form. The patterning of the seams required particular attention to ensure that the fabric seams would behave as modeled and produce the more tubular shape of the membrane.
