discover designboom’s top 10 installations of 2024 by our readers
As we continue our review of 2024’s biggest design stories, we take a look at some of the most exciting installations that crafted immersive multisensory experiences within the public realm. Interactive pieces such as Karolina Halatek’s immersive light sculpture in Tirana, and SpY’s luminous traffic cone set up on the columns of the Aula Academia at Ghent University, are amongst our top 10 installation picks of 2024 submitted by our readers. Highlights include Mathieu Nouhen’s land art installation in France, MARS Studio’s interwoven strings of light glowing in Shenzhen, and ZXD Architects’ enveloping rope net structure stretched over a pond in Changshou Village, which bridged the concept of rural revitalization with contemporary art installation. Varying in materiality, spatial configuration and conceptual exploration, bold designs transformed urban and rural settings all over the world. Here, we spotlight the TOP 10 installations submitted by our readers featured on designboom in 2024.
image courtesy of Velvet
Once a major submarine shipyard established before World War I, the Noblessner port in Tallinn, Estonia has now been transformed into a seafront quarter open to the public and the sea. At its heart, a large, elegant, illuminated bird’s nest crowns a former lighting mast, combining metal and light art. Aptly titled Nest, the installation was commissioned by real estate developer Merko Ehitus Eesti and realized by Estonian design agency Velvet in collaboration with lighting design studio UN-LIKE. Crafted from repurposed materials, the sculptural piece breathes new life into a long-unused structure that once littered the environment. Its conception is inspired by five-year-old Stina Onemar’s vision of a bird’s nest adorning the rusted mast, realized to enliven the urban space and instill an appreciation for old and disused industrial objects.
image courtesy Mathieu Nouhen
Artist and architect Mathieu Nouhen transforms an agricultural plot in France into a land art installation with archaic and mystical undertones. Titled Fossile, the temporary artwork reveals a spiral arrangement of stakes, evoking the form of a fossil and symbolizing the only vestige remaining of man’s imprint on this landscape. ‘It is the passage of man that creates strength, abnormality, absurdity. We symbolize a present or past presence. It is a form turned towards humans, but also towards the other inhabitants of this agricultural land, those who will witness the change,’ shares Nouhen.
image courtesy of MARS Studio
At the invitation of Glow Shenzhen Organizing Committee, MARS Studio designed a vibrant set of installations to illuminate Futian District Citizen Square. Isle of Light is composed of four curved steel structures with staggered heights and ups and downs, unraveling into a spiraling semi-enclosed form. Intricately woven strings form a thin, hazy display surface, creating a miniature ‘urban island’ set against a backdrop of shifting light and shadow.
In the cyclonic field of light and lines, the installation tries to explore the distance between people, urging visitors to reflect on interpersonal relations. The circular spatial layout, resembling rising mist, envelops visitors and resonates softly with the light. Each spiral component symbolizes a unique individual, and in their continuous circling and overlapping, they prompt encounters and exchanges between strangers and friends.
