SHoP's Terracotta Masterpiece Was One of Milan Design Week's Best Installations

The talented architects over at New York firm SHoP — in collaboration with German group NBK Keramik — have assembled a masterfully-constructed terracotta fortress for Interni Magazine‘s Material Immaterial exhibit at Milan Design Week 2017. Composed of 1,670 “individually-carved” terracotta blocks, the Wave/Cave installation comes in at 10 meters high and “softly” emits light from its center at night. “Wave/Cave asks us to slow down and get back in touch with the weight and pace of architecture from other eras,” SHoP principal William Sharples explains to dezeen. “The experience of Wave/Cave is conceived as a deliberate counterpoint to the internal agitation and disrupted attention spans encouraged by contemporary media and technology.”

While SHoP’s original Wave/Cave installation was exhibited in Milan at the beginning of this month, the firm is currently at work on other, equally-striking projects in the San Francisico and New York City areas. Uber has commissioned SHoP’s architects to create something for the company’s Bay Area headquarters, so expect much more press to head their way in the near future.

You can check out a video that showcases the Wave/Cave creation above.