melodysparks | Luminarium Pentalum

Central, a photo by Melodysparks (Chris Preedy) on Flickr.

Each luminarium is a dazzling maze of winding paths and soaring domes where Islamic architecture, Archimedean solids and Gothic cathedrals meld into an inspiring monument to the beauty of light and colour.

The luminaria are designed by company founder, Alan Parkinson, who started experimenting with pneumatic sculptures in the I980s. They are made of a plastic produced uniquely for Architects of Air. Only four colours of plastic are used to generate a great diversity of subtle hues.

Each luminarium is an original design. The principal difference between the different luminaria is found in the rendering of the domes and in the layout of the tunnels.

The domes are the large chambers rising up to 10 metres high that provide the focal points. The tunnels connect the domes and determine the journey the visitor will take. The luminaria also feature ‘pods’ - alcoves where people can sit and relax out of the way of the other visitors.

Each luminarium is made up of around 20 elements that are zipped together on site to typically occupy an area of 1000 square metres. Easy to erect, laying out the structure and anchoring can take as little as 4 hours then, in just 20 minutes, the luminarium is inflated to its monumental size.

In 2012-2013 Architects of Air are touring 6 luminaria – Pentalum, Exxopolis, Miracoco, Mirazozo, Amococo, Levity II:

Built in 2013, Pentalum is a celebration of the beauty of geometry. The luminaria have long used forms based on the Platonic solid, the dodecahedron, and the variants subsequently described by Archimedes and Catalan. The designer, Alan Parkinson, particularly favours these forms because of how they can complement the sense of discovery. They do this because they are forms that don’t have symmetrical axes to settle the viewer in the space.

So the pentagon is the base for the main structure elements, with the exception of the Main Dome, which, in order to achieve more volume, is heptagonal in form and as such still maintains the sought-after asymmetry.

The main dome continues the endeavour to master the rendering of muqarnas dome-like surfaces that was successful on a smaller scale on Exxopolis. The tree occupies the centre space and this time the tree trunk is also 5-sided instead of the usual six-sided trees of previous structures.

The outer dodecahedral domes all have a seam motif based on the schlegel diagram of a flattened dodecahedron, so that these domes become dodecahedrons within pentagons within dodecahedrons. This is hopefully a structure to please other geometry enthusiasts.