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Please join us on Thursday 23 May at 6.30pm for the opening of the PULSE Bamboo Pavilion & LED Installation by the students of Kristof Crolla's Design & Build Studio at the University of Saint-Joseph, Macau. The pavilion opening will be paired with the gallery opening of the school's End of Year Show at the Creative Macau Gallery. All are welcome!

On Friday 17/05 Kristof Crolla will present the Golden Moon Mid-Autumn Festival Lantern on CAADRIA 2013, the 18th International Conference of the Association of Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia, held at the National University of Singapore. Hope to see you there!

We are proud and very honoured to announce that the Golden Moon Mid-Autumn Festival Lantern has been awarded the 2013-2014 Asia Pacific Property Award - 5 Star Award for Best Leisure Architecture in Hong Kong. The award, part of the International Property Awards, was handed over by the honourable Lord Bates at a ceremony that was part of the 2013 Asia Pacific Property & Hospitality Show in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A big step, so special thanks to the judges for this accolade!  

As part of the selection process for the WAN 21 for 21 Award 2013, the WAN jury commended 7 entries which they believed deserved a mention and recognition for their work. We are proud and honoured to hear that amongst those seven the panel, consisting of Andrew Best, Tristam Crfrae, Dennis Ho, Vo Trong Nghia, Malcolm Reading, Martha Thorne and Ma Yansong, commended L.E.A.D for our experimental projects and their creative and interesting form with little materials. Thanks!

It is with great pleasure we announce that LEAD received the prestigious 2012-13 A’ Design Award – “Platinum A' Design Award” – Category: Architecture, Building and Structure Design, for our “Golden Moon Mid-Autumn Festival Lantern” which was built in Victoria Park, Hong Kong last fall. The award was handed over at a ceremony which took place at the beautiful Lake Como in Italy, where the project will also be featured at a design exhibition held at the Ex-Chiesa di San Francesco until 27th of April. A big thank you to the judges and to of all our fantastic team members who made this project possible!

Click here to see the photographs of our latest completed Hong Kong project: Pak Loh Chiu Chow Restaurant - VIP Room!

Please join us all this Sunday at gallery "The Space", 210 Hollywood Road, Hong Kong for the inspiring event "JupYeah", a spring 2013 pop-up swapping event where visitors can exchange high quality goods. Artlab intived LEAD and 7 other young emerging firms to make an installation from a 4' x 8' sheet of plywood. We will present "Relief_P01(Golden Moon)", a computer numerically controlled milled wooden bas-relief based on an interior perspective of the Golden Moon. More information on the event can be found its Facebook page.

Tonight the Dragon Skin Pavilion was awarded with the Design For Asia (DFA) Bronze Award by the Hong Kong Design Centre in the category "Environmental Design - Culture, Public and Exhibition Spaces"!

This Saturday LEAD presents the Dragon Skin Pavilion at the ACADIA 2012 conference, held in San Francisco from 18 to 21 October.

Click here to see the final pictures of the Golden Moon: after six days of display only, but nearly half a million of visitors, these are the best images we could collect.

Please click here for the Official Mid-Autumn Festival Video featuring a short interview with the designers and click here for the Making-Off Video including time-lapses showing the full construction process.

Please join us tonight at 8pm for the Public Opening of the Mid Autumn Festival Lantern - the hottest event in HK!

Although tonight's never-ending "Red Rainstorm" might save us some time filling up the pool tomorrow, this paralysing downpour did come a bit too early to fit our tight construction schedule. With the majority of flames in place it will still be a race against the clock to get the Lantern and it's thousands of LED lights fully ready and wired up for the opening ceremony in 3 days.

Fearless, fast and nimble. Today the secondary structure was finished by a handful of specialists hanging from a temporary scaffolding that itself was suspended from overhanging beams. In the meantime the undulating pathways  have been completed, the fabric flames and all lanterns have arrived onsite and the installation of LED's has started. One week on site and only a few more days to go.

Today Hong Kong's unique craftsmanship is put on display as a dozen of Master Scaffolding Builders start covering the steel geodesic with bamboo. Carefully following the hundreds of markings on both steel members and bamboo sticks, slowly the diamond shaped grid appears.  

With one big swing the cap of the seel dome structure is hoisted into place, 6 stories above ground. Meanwhile gravity-defying spidermen are testing their final mock-ups as more than 2km of bamboo now needs to be turned into an accurate spherical diagrid.

Until late in the evening elegantly curved, black painted steel members are being hoisted into position, all numbered, tagged and crafted with dazzling precision. Slowly the actual size of the lantern starts to reveal itself and it's absolutely stellar! ... Or lunar... It's BIG!

Last view of Victoria Park before the Golden Moon will hit the ground!  Directly crashing the moon onto the site would be too dangerous --> the first construction pieces will be delivered gently on site tomorrow morning 9am.

Finally finally finally we can officially make it public! After a phone call at the end of June announcing our competition win, this summer has been one insane roller-coaster ride: we're thrilled to let you know that this weekend we go on site in Hong Kong's Victoria Park for 11 days of construction of the "Golden Moon, 萬燈喜月", the 2012 Mid-Autumn Festival Lantern! An 18m giant lantern made from steel, bamboo and fabric. Updates on the full story will follow soon. Until then: above a photo of the mock-up of the steel base structure, built in a gigantic shipyard in Guangzhou, China. On the right our scale model presented today at the press conference. Keep track of the news section! We'll provide as many updates on the construction as possible. See you on the 27th of September in Hong Kong!!

5 Years in use and still looking great! Click here for new photos by Sebastien Delagrange of the House for an Artist in Roeselare, Belgium!

Wednesday 30 May 2012 Kristof Crolla presented recent work in his public lecture "Building Simplexity" at "ATU Salon", AUBE office, Shenzhen.

LEAD wins Perspective "40 under 40" 2012 - Architecture Award! Check out Perspective's website or this month's issue for more info.

Dragon Skin Pavilion is featured on suckerPUNCH! Click here to check it out and leave a comment!

Today the Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism \ Architecture organises the symposium "Industry & Urbanism" with speakers Hitoshi Abe (Founder of Atelier Hitoshi Abe Design Inc.), Professor Shinye Okuda (National University of Singapore), Kristof Crolla (LEAD), Wang Weijen (Wang Weijen Architecture), Eric Yim (Hong Kong Design Council) and Liu Xiaodu (Urbanus). The event will be moderated by Chief Curators Gene K. King and Anderson Lee and will take place at the Lecture Hall of the Hong Kong Heritage Discovery Centre.

World Architecture News: Building Simplexity: LEAD show how minimal design can have the maximum effect!

ArchDaily published the Dragon Skin Pavilion on their site! Check it out here and leave a comment!

Kristof Crolla will present his latest lecture "Down the Rabbit Hole! - Advancements in Digital Design & Fabrication in Architecture" on 10 March in Shenzhen University.

Shine Fashion Store by LEAD & NCDA has been awarded the HKDA Global Design Awards 2011 "Excellence Award" in the category Spatial - Retail!

The Biennale officially opened today in Kowloon Park with as guests of honour Mr. Stephen Lam Sui Lung (Chief Secretary of Administration, HKSAR) and Mr. LV Ruifeng (Deputy Mayor of Shenzhen Municipal Government)! A parade brought the hundreds of visitors through the Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Taipei Exhibit pavilions joined by representatives from respective governments as the officiating guests – the Dragon Skin shivered with pleasure from all the attention! In the evening a first symposium on the concept of biennales was moderated by Tris Kee, starring Terence Riley, Huang Weiwen, Aaron Betsky and chief-curators Gene K.King & Anderson Lee. For more information on the events, check out the official biennale blog!  

Early in the morning 5 large wooden crates were dropped off in Kowloon Park, packed with over 160 carefully crafted dragon shells, still frozen from the Finnish winter they came from. Not an easy creature to tame as it eventually took 24 hands and 8 hours to force the Dragon Skin Pavilion into its (double curved synclastic catenary) shape! Special thanks to the amazing friends & students for their spontaneous help! --> On to the opening of the 2011-12 Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture!  

Time moves fast as we stretch and bend ourselves into the 5^th urban dimension in a pure act of mental yoga. Evening lectures by Yu Kui and Daniel Gillen (MAD), Christoph Klemmt (Orproject) and Eva Castro (Plasma + Groundlab) cast yet another light on Architecture in China – a light so intense it knocks some of us out… On to the finale!  

A vast barren wasteland for a site, 2 hours away by car as we travel through a never ending city. Developer’s security guards scare away those curious about the virtually abandoned urban village in decay. A striking contrast with Beijing’s historic and recent icons!

Talking about intensity! On top of the non-stop intense tooling sessions and the conceptual mind bending in studio students and teaching staff are bombarded with eye-opening lectures and seminars by Yan Gao (dot-A), Brendon Carlin (AA), Kristof Crolla (LEAD) Rolando Rodriguez-Leal (Zaha Hadid Architects), Xu Feng (XWG), Chen Chen & Nicola Saladino (ReMix) and Xu Dongxin (Crystal). As the vivid debates bring the AA’s enthusiastic criticality to China, Beijing brings its unique position to the discussion table!  

It's blistering cold, the sky is (somewhat) clear and spirits are as high as the many fireworks are shooting, here at the opening day of the AA Winter School in Beijing's Tsinghua University! As part of an excited team of tutors Brendon Carlin & Kristof Crolla kicked off their studio "5D - Multi-dimensional Urban Planning / Pluralistic Urban Scenography" in which 13 students will explore how urban proposals for mixed-use housing can be developed through multiple scenarios (5D) evolving over time (4D) in space (3D).

In the 21st century, retail interior design has grown increasingly more complex... Read about the Shine Fashion Store in this month's Perspective Magazine! Click to download!

As part of deTour 2011 the “Belgian Spirit” curatorial team invited Kristof Crolla’s HKU MArch 1 Design Studio "Atavist Anatomies" to design and build a massive tensegrity structure that will support an exhibition of 30 gorgeous T-Shirts by 30 gorgeous Belgian architects, designers and fashion designers. Following a 2-week workshop one design was short-listed, adapted and optimised for construction with now the first pieces being assembled on site. Only 5 days to go before the opening, so mark the dates 25/11 – 11/12 and pass by to see both the final structure and the study models!

And also this month's MARU Magazine devotes a full spread to the Shine Fashion Store! Click to download

Shine Fashion Store is featured in this month's BOB Magazine - International Magazine of Space Design! Click to download

The Dragon Skin Pavilion left its underground lair to become one of the defining centre pieces of the MatFab Exhibition, a part of Tampere Architecture Week 2011, Finland!  

Shine is on Dezeen! Check it out + leave your comments on this link!

Please click here to see the latest pictures of our first completed HK project: The Shine Fashion Store in Causeway Bay!

In its dark, hidden underground lair the feisty dragon slowly emerges from a series of uniquely shaped, CNC routed, intersecting plywood shells, all bent onto one single mold. Isn’t she beautiful – isn’t she grand?! Thanks so much to the spectacular team of students, collaborators, supporting institutes and sponsors for making this week possible! You area amazing! :-)

After intense nights of scripting the CNC machines are finally droning loudly as the first components are being shaped in a perfectly smooth cycle of cutting-heating-forming-checking-slotting-etc. Soon the first assembled layers will start to emerge!  

This place rocks like granite: a ginormous CNC press is spitting out the first test pieces for a 1:1 prototype and we’re off to an all-nighter of scripting to implement joint optimisation and automate the geometry unrolling. 12h to go until the file-to-factory deadline – and that’s pushing it!   contact

By democratic vote a series of proposals has been narrowed down to a final pavilion design, now on its way towards full-scale construction. The material, UPM’s brand-new post-formable plywood sheets, is so fresh, unexplored and untouched that the close monitoring, guidance and supervision by their team of engineers is highly welcome. Constant design tweakings following feedback form physical component and material tests add to the caffeine-induced high... BOOYAKASHA!  

The 3rd Finland Workshop kick-off opening lecture “Material Design & Digital Fabrication” by Sebastien Delagrange set the tone and linked favorite, highly-respected “oldies” with today’s ongoing architectural design debate. Laptops, knives and cardboard were introduced into the design arena the next day and off we go for a week of material design & digital fabrication intensity!  

What a DAY! An avalanche of digital experiments filled the room, spawning captivating debates with visiting jurors on the various challenges urban design is facing and how explorative tools can help in broadening discussions and horizons. While outside the sun was burning one team after another passed the review presenting their visions for the future City on the Sea and at the end of the day, exhausted but satisfied, everybody finally submerged themselves into Shanghai’s vibrantly wild nightlife. What a DAY!