In early January ’18 a team of five fabricators from Cutting Edge flew out to South Korea to install a bespoke water installation as part of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang for the Hyundai Motor Company pavilion, designed by Asif Khan and iart.
The fountain at 16.8 metres long and 7.8 metres wide, weighing a massive 12 tonnes, was quite a challenge to transport 5,625 miles by air from HQ.
The water installation took three weeks to fabricate and a further two weeks to install within the pavilion, described as the “darkest building on earth”. Visitors enter the pavilion into a bright white space lined with solid-surface material Corian® in Pearl Grey.
Visitors can interact with the hydrophobic water feature, with 400 sensors sending 25,000 water droplets a minute along the carved channels, colliding and ultimately pooling. Hyundai Motor Company used the pavilion and fountain to show case their latest technology; a Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicle. There are rumours that a permanent Pavilion maybe installed in Seoul.
The biggest challenge was working in daytime temperatures of -20c˚ for two weeks – the team had to get things right the first time. Challenge number two was acclimatizing to the local food, including pickled eels,– but that’s another story!
The athletes did well to cope with the harsh and changeable conditions of South Korea, perhaps better suited to other nations, winning five medals for Team GB and coming 19th overall, behind winners Norway, then Germany and Canada.
Cutting Edge are delighted that the facade of the Hyundai Pavilion went on to be awarded the Media Architecture Award 2018. The award ceremony took place in Beijing as part of the Media Architecture Biennale.
