Each spring, the MFA Graduate Core Design Studio in the Department of Interior Design at Pratt Institute asks students to draw inspiration from Isamu Noguchi’s work.

This year, premised on Noguchi’s interpretations and evolutions of traditional Japanese chochin lanterns, students proposed a hypothetical mobile retail strategy allowing The Noguchi Museum to display and sell Noguchi’s Akari light sculptures as a collaborative pop-up with Pratt Institute. 

Working in three teams, the students’ proposals consider the context of the unique sites where the pop-up will be installed, cultural diversity and knowledge, collapsibility and sustainability of material use and focus on upcycling, recycling and making. How do we as designers redefine the retail exchange and cultivate education while fostering a dialogue between the museum and community?  

The site is interpreted in multiple ways: a static installation in which the pop-up is presented within the boundaries of the Pratt campus, and a mobile site in the Noguchi Museum’s sprinter van used to house and transport the Akari and exhibit when they are not deployed.

The materials are limited to upcycled and recycled newspaper, wire metal hangers, locally collected bamboo, corrugated cardboard, and muslin fabric scraps. These could be used in any manner, with fasteners determined at the discretion of the team. 

Akari light sculptures for this project were donated by The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum. Pop-up materials and resources were donated for the project through the generosity of Cintas, The New York Botanical Garden, The New York Times, Rudolf Steiner School, Rapid 3D, and the Department of Interior Design, Pratt Institute.

Inspired by the interplay of light and shadow in Akari light sculptures, a traveling pop-up exhibition is proposed. Akari: Shape of Light is made of a versatile assembly, designed to transform an interior space into a poetic place that educates the public about Isamu Noguchi; and to create a participatory built environment that embodies the artist’s creative principles.

The installation is a manifestation of the diametric nature of light that shifts between day and night. The overall design is informed by Noguchi’s merging of opposites — surface and structure, density and weightlessness, dark and light.

Extracted from the L8 model, the derived system of triangular rotation forms the modular design language and spatial strategy. Each configuration is collapsible and suspended from the ceiling—exploring spatial relationships between form, volume, and illumination. Concealed and revealed throughout the modular mass, the Akari is integrated in the tectonic language that defines the space and shapes the light.

Students
Race Calderin, Jui Hsaun Chen, Lufeng Chen, Savannah Hall, Yirou Hong, Jeffrey Kuhn, Xinhang Li, Elizabeth Mak, Charis Tang, Xinyi Wang, Xiyu Zhao

Faculty
Sheryl Kasak

This project is an investigation of the multiple stages of expansion and collapse abstracted from the system of construction and assembly used to create the Akari lamps.

The group aims to present a pop-up design that incorporates modularity, collapsibility, and sustainable design by combining a modular, interlocking cardboard system with a newspaper skin to create a unique structure that can adapt in response to various site requirements.

Students 
Lin Chen, Jing Gao, Noora Mohiuddin, Miguel Rodriguez, Crystal Sun, Denise Turati, Ruoyan Wang, Zixu Wang, Zhe Zhai, Jessie Zhao

Faculty
Greta Hansen

This easily reassembled, lightweight pop-up apparatus is self sustainable. It is free of needing to use plugs or cords and is not dependent on surrounding structures. The ease of putting The Aura of Light together plus de-installing it, enhances the pop-up mobility and strategy.

The presence of this installation resembles the geometry and form of Noguchi’s aesthetic. The visitors can recognize it from a distance. This display system honors Noguchi’s use of interlocking systems and the concept of a meandering dry garden, allowing visitors to experience the Akari through various vantage points and perspectives.

Beauty and simplicity is fundamental to Noguchi’s understanding of nature, which informed much of the artist’s work which created a sense of organic unity and serenity. Deeply influenced by Japanese concepts like wabi-sabi, which celebrates the beauty of imperfection, Noguchi believed that the natural word was constantly evolving and adapting to its surroundings, a dynamic quality reflected in his art. Noguchi’s creative approach is filled with a sense of interconnectedness. He believed that the natural environment was not separate, but an integral part, of humanity; establishing this relationship as symbiotic creates a harmony within Noguchi’s design language.

Students
Ritu Bhargava, Marija Galic, Hannah Hemmerly, Rebecca Lamb, Siyuan Li, Renata Milton, Raksha Sanikam, Aditi Singh, Wenda Song, Fay Ran, Jiawen Yu

Faculty
Tetsu Ohara