Plasticity is an installation created by multidisciplinary Italian architect Niccolo Casas. The installation was exhibited as part of the Italian Pavilion at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia, coordinated by architect and researcher Alessandro Melis.
“Plasticity” expresses a bold idea for a new, eco-innovative architecture. It is an eco-innovative architecture work with the environmental organization Parley for the Oceans.
The installation is a 3.6-meter-high sculpture. It was created with robotic 3D printing manufacturer Nagami. The material was upcycled marine plastic waste collected from distant islands, beaches, and villages.
Currently, at least 5.25 trillion macro and microplastic are floating in the world’s oceans. Casas’s collaboration with Parley for the Oceans pointed ecosystem and how architecture can become an initiator of the economy. Additionally, Parley is a global network working on solutions for marine plastic pollution, overfishing, and climate change.
The phrase “Plasticity” combines the words plastic and sustainability. It refers to efforts and activities involving re-using and converting manufactured plastics. The installation emphasizes the concepts of transformation and conversion. Plasticity questioned the connection between non-human and human life in a balanced way.
Plasticity shows how damaging, indestructible plastics may be changed by digital technology and resurrected as light and sophisticated architectural creations capable of producing new spatial articulations and environmentally relevant acts.
Niccolo Casas said, “Together with Parley for the Oceans and Nagami, we are committed to a joint effort with the aim of showing a vision of how architecture can be designed and built in the future but, in particular, of how architecture can become an instigator and activator of the circular economy. Plasticity is the avant-garde architectural example of what can be done with intercepted plastics from ocean cleaning activities.”
The installation is currently exhibited at London Design Festival at the V&A till 2 October 2022.
Project Info
Designed by: Niccolo Casas
Robotic 3D printing: Nagami
Material: Parley Ocean Plastic
Design and fabrication team: Manuel Jiménez García, Ignacio Viguera, Miguel Ángel Jiménez García, Miguel García Jiménez, Luis De la Parra
