A Trip to the Light Fantastic

DP Architects’ Rhizome House was handpicked to be one of just 14 lighting installations built for the Illuminade route of the prestigious Amsterdam Light Festival — the only selected Asian and Singaporean finalist entry.

- Suzanne Miao

The design for Rhizome House doesn’t look like anything you’d generally associate with the word ‘house’. Geometrically derived from nature’s root-like rhizome structures, the innovative design was a response to the theme of biomimicry at Illuminade, a spectacular evening walk forming part of the Amsterdam Light Festival, which opened last December and continued into late January this year.

All along the route, extraordinary illuminated artworks were dotted throughout the Dutch capital — including Rhizome House, created by Singapore-based practice DP Architects (DPA). Joe Krentz, architectural executive at DP Architects, worked alongside project director and DPA’s CEO Angelene Chan to realise the team’s vision.

Naturally, the project wasn’t without its hurdles. “The sheer size and quantity [of the pieces] were certainly some of the construction challenges,” Krentz says. “More than 1,300 individual and unique pieces all having to come together required precise intensive coordination and prototyping to complete the installation on time. As much as the artwork needed to be designed, the process of assembly needed to be designed as well.”

In this regard, the designer notes, the greatest challenge was creating an installation that would be de-mountable and transportable. Fabrication in Singapore allowed DPA to utilise its local resources and have better quality control, but also required some foresight into how the installation would make it to Amsterdam — how big, how many pieces, how would they move? Stringent planning, however, meant that the team was able to troubleshoot many of the logistical challenges early on.