NAWA is an ultralight, durable sculpture made up of 35 steel arches, making an open gate through which anyone can walk freely. Its bionic form and polished surface reflecting its surroundings creates the effect of a naturally growing sculpture with a constantly changing look throughout the day.
The sculpture is a part of the European Capital of Culture 2016 celebrations, whose main slogan is “metamorphoses of culture”, i.e. shifts occurring in the domain of culture, communities and the city itself.
ARTIST & CREATIVE LEAD
Oskar Zieta
Zieta Prozessdesign Studio:
Magda Gasiorowska – project management
Paulina Ptasinska
Paulina Burzynska
Zanetta Korsak
Alicja Chojnacka
Magdalena Szwajcowska
Katarzyna Pelc
Marcin Glowacki
Grzegorz Lochnicki
Bartosz Jankiewicz
Piotr Gniewek
Lukasz Gawronski
Marcel Bartosz
Dawid Majewski
Revitalization
NAWA opens another chapter in the history of Daliowa Island. The space is currently being revitalized and very soon will become a bustling, open space for meetings, concerts and artistic events.Along with planned vegetation, NAWA will create consistent organic unity, emerging naturally from the river.
Form
One of the major source of inspiration for NAWA was bionics. This branch of science allows the inventions of technical solutions which mimic the behavior of living organisms. NAWA's form relates to both its natural surroundings and neighboring buildings.
Despite its artistic character, the sculpture will also fulfill its social functions in the public space. In the designing process, researching the potential social impact of the sculpture and aesthetics were equally important.
Parametric Design
The organic arches are the result of parametric design. This innovative domain operating in architecture, engineering and city planning relies on software which allows to generate blocks on the basis of combined input of parameters. During the process of computer shaping, forms that surprise even the creator of the sculpture are generated.
Thanks to the initial parameters, the final shapes fulfill practical goals, such as optimal size, weight and adaptation to the environment. The NAWA design required advanced calculations and modeling in Grasshopper software, which allowed to generate 60 blocks. Their shape was accommodated to the terrain and surroundings.
FiDU Technology
The weight of the ultralight construction was possible thanks to FiDU—innovative technology invented by Oskar Zieta. It allows to distort the shapes of steel elements welded together. Thanks to "inflating" it with compressed air, the metal forms become durable and stable, maintaining its lightness at the same time. NAWA is the first FiDU construction on such a large scale.
Journey
Extraordinary projects require extraordinary solutions. We needed to use a special method to transport NAWA's arches. All of the elements were carried from the production hall to the Daliowa Island on barges. Citizens of Wroclaw could witness this spectacular journey from the streets, bridges and bank of the Odra river.
Wroclaw is famous for its number of bridges and is known as the Venice of the North, but inland water transport has lost its popularity over the last few years. Hopefully, such a spectacular project will help restorethis and bring the Odra river back to life.
Numbers
We used almost 52 tons of steel.
We cut 714 elements out of it.
To pump the elements, we needed around 1 000 000m3 of air.
The production process took about 700 hours of work.
The combined length of weld totals 2 kilometers.
23 people were involved.
We created 35 arches using FiDU technology.
Elements of the sculpture were carried on 3 barges.
The height of the highest profile amounts to 7 meters.
NAWA covers an area of 100m2.
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