all images © SOFTlab

SOFTlab is a design studio based in New York City and the studio creates various designs and production of projects across almost every medium, from digitally fabricated large-scale sculpture, to interactive design, to immersive digital video installations. The latest work of SOFTlab is installed in Melissa Shoe Gallery with the thousands of colorful petals that change the aura of the space. 

melissa shoe gallery outer view

SOFTlab combines the technology and craft with the delicate nature of the We Are Flowers collection by Melissa. Nature often provides inspiration for our work and it has been a great opportunity to use one of nature’s most beautiful creations as a building material. SOFTlab used over 20,000 translucent flowers to create a large immersive hanging surface in the New York flagship. It is both precisely engineered and yet has the enchantment of a vibrant hanging garden. The surface was designed specifically for the Melissa Gallery in New York. We engineered a Mylar net that is made of over 4,000 unique pieces.

The engineered nature of the installation is tempered by the delicacy and exuberance of the thousands of colorful petals we have attached to the surface. These flowers are placed in a more natural arrangement to combine the flowers and structural surface in a way that resembles a natural canopy of flowers. This canopy hangs down into the gallery at specific places to make the installation much more immersive and spatial.

Although we used cutting edge digital technology to develop this installation, we hope it remains mostly hidden in order for everyone to experience the magic of a hanging garden of flowers. SOFTlab imagines this installation as an extension of the We Are Flowers collection by Melissa: technically innovative with attention to every detail, but first and foremost a design that expresses sensuality through its form and brings joy and color to the Melissa experience.

3D model of melissa ''we are flowers''

exploded model of ''we are flowers'' layered with different structures

section of ''we are flowers''

> via SOFTlab