Living Tree by 06D Studio just won the Jury Prize at the Christmas Design Award 2018, a competition organized by Designboom in collaboration with Osaka Design Future. The jury, including Toyo Ito (architect), Tom Kawada (developer), Kimi Hasegawa (designer), Birgit Lohmann (director of Designboom), awarded 5 projects. The overall winner was Tony Leung's Deer Forest II project from Hong Kong; Huan Miao Khoo's Christmas Swing project from Australia came second; the jurors then awarded three prizes, one for each juror. Kimi Hasegawa awarded David Toth from the Czech Republic with the Voice of Xmas project; Tom Kawada awarded Be Santa from Nudnik, the Netherlands; and Birgit Lohmann awarded Living Tree, the 06D project.
The installation Living Tree draws its inspiration from the Japanese tradition of walking around the city during the Christmas period, enjoying the Christmas lights and exchanging gifts. Living Tree is an interactive light installation, which recreates the Christmas tree in its classic iconography, thanks to a series of fiber optic wires. Passers-by can connect and give gifts to their loved ones, family and friends. The installation invites people to connect with their loved ones, and reacts to the human presence by changing color, from cold colors to warm colors, when it detects the presence of someone, thus becoming particularly effective thanks to the people’s interaction.
Living Tree can be installed indoor or outdoor, but of course the best effect is in low lit environments. It is composed of a perforated steel sheet suspended by cables at 2.80 meters height. From the structure come down 576 of optical fibre cables and there are 36 motion sensors on the underside; thanks to 36 Uno Arduino boards which transform the movement into signals sent to as many LED lights
connected with the optical fiber cables, the entire installation's colors changes making evocative atmosphere.
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