arch27

A flower-influenced 'upside-down' parasol has won a design competition and could soon be used by British holidaymakers. The innnovative design by Kim Min Jae Architects (www.kimminjaearchitects.com) sees the parasols representing a living flower through various stages of transformation. Dubbed 'Festival of Nature', the parasol won the recently-announced Paphos Beach Shelter Competition, organised by the Cyprus School Of Architecture (CYSOA). The winning design will be constructed on Geroskipou Municipality Beach, with a view to rolling the design out across other beaches in the area. With a colour inspired by the ocean, the parasol has seven settings to suit the user's preferences. The ability to invert the traditional parasol structure adds to the natural flower aesthetic. Kim Min Jae explains: "It was aimed to transform the beach space on the interface of this marvelous nature into a space which stands for nature of festivals by respecting nature with the design of nature-like parasol beyond the function of sun shade. "To do this, a parasol design was symbolised by a flower that can represent a festival among objects in nature on the land. At the same time, this was inspired by the constantly changing appearance of the sea surface. "Thus, each parasol represents a living flower, and through various stages of transformation, they show various gestures of flowers that can be seen in nature. Also, from the inspiration of various sea surface colours by the reflection of the sunlight, a variety of colours resembling sea surface were put on the canopy. Finally, the designs of the parasols are completed with the users??? ongoing behaviours in the space where the parasols are installed. As a result, this space is filled with gestures of living flowers and sea surface. At the same time, it turns into a festival space resembling a living nature, with various colours, shadows and users??? actions. Functionally, the range of the sunshade can be adjusted to seven steps t