Sydney’s digital origami tigers have been adopted by the World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF) for their international Year of the Tiger campaign. The official launch was held at Hauptbahnhof, Berlin’s central station, where they will be on display until 30th August.

The Tigers’ world trip to raise awareness for tiger conservation continued to Singapore, where they took part at the Smart Light Festival in October.

Earlier this year they ushered in the Chinese New Year at Customs House Sydney and created a roar at KL design week in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in May.

Stefan Ziegler, WWF Tiger expert said: “The giant origami tigers are a powerful eye catcher. WWF is very pleased that they raise public awareness for tiger conservation. There are only 3,200 tigers left in the wild and we need to act now to save the greatest cat for the future.”

The giant digital origami tigers fuse ancient lantern making methods with cutting edge design and fabrication technology, bringing tradition and innovation, east and west together.

The crouching tigers were designed by multinational architectural practice LAVA with Jennifer Kwok , Customs House Sydney, and are the size of a truck at 2.5 metres high and 7 metres long, yet weigh only 200kgs.

The project continues LAVA’s mission in lightweight structures to build MORE WITH LESS.

“We also believe that humour belongs to architecture, too, and so the tigers are playing soccer to kick off the FIFA world cup starting later this year,” said Chris Bosse, Australian director of LAVA.

“The design concept for the giant tigers evolved from digital origami Tasmanian tigers that we developed with architecture students in Launceston last year. These thylacines took over Tasmania during the Ten days on the Island.

Made of fully recyclable materials, aluminium and barrisol, the big cats are brought to life with low energy LED lighting. The crouching digital tigers fuse ancient lantern making methods with cutting edge digital design and fabrication technology, bringing east and west together through tradition and innovation. The tigers are inspired by “zhezhi”, a Chinese term for paper folding, more popularly known by its Japanese name “origami”.

Data

Architect: LAVA – Laboratory for Visionary Architecture
Stuttgart, Germany & Sydney, Australia
www.l-a-v-a.net

Materials: Fully recyclable materials, aluminium and barrisol. Low energy LED lighting.

Collaborators: Jennifer Kwok , Customs House Sydney

Credits & Copyrights

Source: LAVA

click drawings to enlarge