Echigo-Tsumari Exchange Center is a conference and trade centre in the Japanese region Tokamachi. Weekly markets are held here, as is an art triennial. In the central pool, surrounded by an open colonnade, is a floating pavilion. It combines origami, the ancient Japanese craft, with state-of-the-art materials. Plastic sheets with a net structure of intertwined polyethylene fibres and sine-curve creases were folded and woven crosswise into a three-dimensional object. The structure is held in place by tension strings – the same polyester used on the face of tennis rackets. The back side of the space is enclosed with a twin-wall polycarbonate sheet. Blue LED lights are integrated in the cocoon’s skin.

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