Inspired by the clouds, this art installation was designed to be your happy place!

Every kid has dreamed of sitting inside of a cloud. As a young kid, I pictured them as being more like tough, hovering wads of cotton candy that were thick enough to hold weight but airy enough to stay in the sky. The day I heard that you’d fall right through if you tried to sit on top of one was the day my dreams of sitting on the clouds ended. But today, Valencia-based Clap Studio has designed an art installation called Cumulus that brings those dreams of sitting inside of clouds back to life.

Inspired by the lightness and calm of clouds, Cumulus was designed to be a muted, soothing hub with a partly enclosed interior where people can feel at ease. Pulled taut around steel beams that form the shape of a sphere or Chinese lantern, the elastic fabric creates a round, internal space that’s similar to the feel of a trampoline. Inside, the globe of bright white fabric evokes the feeling of being suspended inside of a cloud. Three hanging light fixtures also brighten the interior to enhance the interior’s relaxing ambiance, mixing warm fluorescent light with the optic brightness of the elastic fabric.

Speaking on the design of Cumulus, the designers note that, “Inside the cloud, the body seems to gravitate with a feeling of lightness, it is the place where calm reigns. Through the fabric, you get to see only the shadows of what is outside and the sounds aren’t clear enough to perceive their origin.” As the years go by and human productivity increases, at times it might feel like the feeling of calm is a depleted resource. Installations like Cumulus help to make moments of respite that much more accessible, bringing us back to the magic we felt when we thought we could sit on the clouds.

Designer: Clap Studio

With elastic fabric similar to that found on trampolines, Cumulus is tensile and springy.

Partly enclosed, Cumulus features a circular hole that grants entry and exit to the installation with an attachable net that props guests in the installation’s center.

Guests can cozy into the corners of Cumulus to recline deeply against the installation’s side walls.

Hanging light fixtures brighten the space to enhance Cumulus’s cloudlike ambiance.

Opening up to the sky, an exposed skylight reveals views of actual clouds in the sky.

Shadows emanate from the outside looking in and vice versa, thanks to the elastic fabric’s membrane-like skin.

The Cloud Chair makes you quite literally feel like you’re on top of the world!

Surrealist-dream-come-true, the Cloud Chair is designed to visually and physically create the experience of sitting on a fluffy cumulus cloud. Unlike traditional chairs with 3-4 legs, the Cloud Chair is elevated using multiple metal rods, not only giving the cloud its perceived lightness and airy-ness, but also resembling steady drops of rain falling from the cloud’s underbelly. The inspiration for the chair came to Shota Urasaki after she saw a moving cloud raining over a distant coastline. Inspiration immediately struck and the Cloud Chair was born.

The visual puffy element of the Cloud Chair is made from tufts of polyester fiber, pierce-fitted into a polyurethane foam block to give it volume and its soft, comfortable seating experience. This floating piece of sky-fluff is then mounted on several stainless steel supports that look like long streams of rainfall, with a mirror at the bottom to give the rain an illusion of continuity. Clever, eh??

The Cloud Chair is a winner of the A’ Design Award for the year 2020.

Designer: Shota Urasaki

A Rainstorm in Your Shower

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Not everyone finds minimalism fun! For anyone looking to add a little more pizzaz, the Cumulus shower provides a whimsical way of rinsing off after a long day. A twist on the popular rain-style shower head, Cumulus is a literal interpretation of the cloud. It features a fluffy nozzle from which it pours three gentle streams of water. An additional handheld unit serves those hard-to-reach areas or makes it easy to rinse kids in the bath. Playfully shaped, this friendly, familiar fragment is one that children will look forward to getting under at bath time!

Designer: Arman Zamani of UNSEEN Design Studio

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Stylish Headphones for Autistic Adults

Cumulus is a stylish headphone designed for autistic adults, where the headband goes round the neck and it has a galvanic skin sensor. This sensor helps determine the rise of temperature or heart rate via vibrations and better understand the mental conditioning of the autistic adult, at that given moment. The way the headphones wrap around the user’s ears also provides a sense of comfort and security.

The Cumulus has three modes: Sound Cancellation, Directional Microphone and Music. By covering the ears, the Sound Cancellation gets activated and provides absolute silence; by simply putting a hand at the back of the ear will activate Directional Microphone, which can isolate speech from background noise; and simply swiping the panel will activate Music. A sophisticated and handy aid for those who need it!

Designer: Diamond Ho

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(Stylish Headphones for Autistic Adults was originally posted on Yanko Design)

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