'furin' wind chimes by toyo ito and takram design engineering

interactive installation for okamura design space R.

on a grid of equilateral triangles, takram designers hung a total of 280 glass wind chimes from the ceiling at varying heights to represent the undulation of a wave. when you walk underneath the wind chime, not only does it ring, but its LED also alights like a firefly. the wind chimes nearer to the ceiling ring in higher tones, and those hung lower in lower tones together offering 10 degrees of tonal expression. and it feels as though you are walking inside a large interactive instrument. additionally, the wind chimes are networked together, so that the sound and light spreads to adjacent wind chimes like ripples in the water. this network system was based on the idea of ‘behavior’ we observe among certain animals in nature that form groups. the videos were posted on youtube today, the installation itself was on show from 28.07.2008 to 22.08.2008.

okamura design space R takram design engineering