As some of you may well know by now, we here at the studio like toys. And toys that can be driven and articulated hold a near and dear place in our collective heart. When installing sprawling artworks that range greatly in elevation, boom lifts hit the sweet spot and are hard to surpass in efficiency. Perhaps we went a little overboard in Shanghai with all the scissor lifts and booms, but this little video is nonetheless testament to their utility:
Alas, we shan't be having those in India as access and complex schedules have made it impossible. And so we are going way back in the playbook to unearth the tried and true method of scaffolding. And to be fair, you can sometimes get great mileage from very simple technologies. In fact, while recently onsite in Hong Kong for the Gehry project, we noticed wild outcroppings of bamboo scaffolding ten stories up. These little organic and primitive platforms were a wonderful contrast to the torqued and twisting polish of Gehry's new helical tower.
Arlen has spent the last two weeks designing exact scaffolding platforms and turrets to follow the contours of the artwork and peek up through circular openings in the design. Without the flexibility of driveable and articulating booms to get our team up and through the meandering sculpture, the team will work on shaping the glass from these aerial work surfaces. When I saw the preparatory cad work, I couldn't help but remark at the mash-up of low and high tech:
And don't fear, we still are going to have one boom lift just in case!
