Idea Cloud is the grand opening exhibition pavilion for a new mixed used development Airside located on the site of the iconic former Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport in the middle of downtown Kowloon City. It showcased both historical archive of Hong Kong aviation history as well as commissioned artwork by local artists on different interpretations of flying in a woven structure out of the most iconic materials of Hong Kong due to its ubiquitous scaffolding construction - bamboo.

Spatialising the exhibition theme ‘Desire’ (to fly) into comical idea clouds, the atrium exhibition pavilion is composed of multiple intersecting (idea) bubbles. Each of them corresponds to a theme extended from the progressive curatorial storyline about flying, ranging from desiring, learning, taking off to up in the air.

The journey begins with a gentle slope as the runway axis, with a number of platforms on both sides branching out. Arriving at the atrium with a generous scale, natural light floods in from the skylight above casting shadows of the bamboo weave.

Each bubble of the cloud is woven by horizontal and 2 off-centred vertical layers of bamboo strips, supported by a minimal set of steel arc inner structure, to achieve the multi-spherical form. While a total of 6km of bamboo strips are used, they will be reclaimed and reused for future exhibitions and artworks.

Instead of adopting a typical scaffolding technique that tends to be a very rigid, homogenous, and orthogonal lattice, the materiality of bamboo is challenged further with reference to the traditional use of bamboo strips to create more three-dimensional woven daily objects yet at a much greater scale with more complex intersecting spheres to render a cloud shape. The thickness, width and type of bamboo strips used have undergone a tremendous amount of physical mock-up and testing in relation to the density, porosity, structure and curvature of the weaving pattern.

Since the site is actually inside the atrium of a mall, shop frontage and visual connections are critical. The grand opening pavilion has to have an iconic presence in the atrium but also needs to avoid becoming a visual obstacle blocking different sightlines around the atrium. With the use of woven bamboo strips, thickness, density and porosity of the weave could be easily adjusted without sabotaging the overall exhibition layout and the geometric form of Idea Cloud. The design transforms a very traditional material that seems dated into a more contemporary expression that links up the history of Hong Kong aviation history with new interpretations about the meaning of flying.