Tensegrity Christmas Tree
- Tensegrity Christmas Tree
2011 | Completed - Living in a small apartment with no space for a full Christmas tree, I started a tradition of making a wall-mounted “2D” tree. This year, I decided on a quiet and minimal tree to help bring some calm to the end of a hectic year. The 2.4m high structure is made by stuffing a suspended white lycra cone with cardboard “ribs”. The cardboard pieces are lens-shaped to create the curved form. Each piece, one bigger than the other, touches the next at a point, but are not joint. Instead, they are held in place only by tension from the elastic lycra fabric, thus creating a tensegrity structure.
Left: Tree lit by external light; Right: Internal fairy lights switched on
Left: Lit tree from another angle; Right: Stretched lycra star at the crown
Close up
Left: Close-up of lit tree; Right: Inside of tree -carboard ridges at top and bottom, lycra on left and right of image (front and back of tree), and fairy lights randomly placed in cavities of tree
While I prefer the tree without decoration, my housemates were uncomfortable with a bare Christmas tree. A compromise was reached with these light and translucent snow flakes in expanded polystyrene.
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