Wave 'Coral': Four Perforated Canopies Bring Human Scale to a Monumental Plaza

Some public squares are built to be looked at rather than lived in. Their scale belongs to monuments, processions and traffic, and the person on foot crosses them quickly, exposed and small. Wave 'Coral' starts from that imbalance. It does not compete with the monument at the centre. It slips a series of low, rippling shells into the margins, places where a body can pause, sit and look back at the square from under a roof of perforated light.

The project was designed by Dongpei Yue, 国一 黄 and Xiaoqian Zhou, and it is listed under Sweden. It received the Editor's Choice at Sculpt[r] 2020. The team frames the work in a single line: the sculpture is meant not only to solve practical problems but also to enhance the interpretation of heritage. That double ambition, utility and meaning, shapes every drawing in the set.

Four Canopies Hold the Corners Instead of Claiming the Centre

The 1:1250 site plan makes the strategy clear. A central oval carries the obelisk and two fountains, and the team leaves it untouched. The four canopies sit on the flanking islands, two on each side, so the composition reads as a symmetrical frame around the historic axis rather than an object placed on it. The plan labels Rue Royale, the Pont de la Concorde and the Seine River at its edges, which places the intervention between a formal street axis and the riverbank.

Arrows along each footprint mark the points of entry on both long sides, so the shells work as porous passages as well as shelters. In the aerial model the canopies read as low, earth-coloured ridges against the pale ground, never rising high enough to interrupt the sightline to the obelisk. That restraint is the project's most important decision: heritage stays at the centre, and the new work redistributes how people occupy the edges.

A Shell Cut From One Repeating Cell

The plan and section drawings show how each canopy is made. A single surface folds into a zigzag outline in plan, and an irregular cellular lattice punctures it across its whole area. The cut lines D, E and F slice the shell along its length, and the small whole-model views beside them show the surface rising and dipping like a frozen swell. The cells vary in size, so the lattice reads as grown rather than gridded, and the coral of the title comes through in that porous, organic texture.

Human Height Against a Monument's Shadow

The lead rendering sets one canopy against a dark plaza with the obelisk standing behind it. Small white figures walk beside and beneath the shell, and the comparison carries the argument: the canopy curls only slightly above head height, then lifts at its ends into hooded openings. The square stays vast, but the shell carves out a zone sized to people. Francisco del Corral, CEO of WaterScales architects in Madrid, who judged Sculpt[r] 2020, praised exactly that sensitivity, while also pointing to the cost of repeating the same piece four times.

We think it is a very interesting concept with a sensitive human scale in such a huge context. The natural and liquid geometry is very suggestive. In our opinion it would be better if it would have been developed a bit further in terms of materials and perception of the square. The pieces are so similar. They could have changed depending on the place they occupied.Francisco del Corral, CEO, WaterScales architects, Madrid, Spain

The critique is fair. The site plan gives each canopy a different neighbour: a garden edge, a street corner, the approach from the bridge. Yet the four shells are near copies. Letting the wave stretch, flatten or open differently in each position would have turned four instances into a sequence, and the square itself into part of the reading.

Vines, Tinted Panels and a Timber Deck Underneath

Up close, the project shifts from sculpture to room. The paired renderings fill some cells of the lattice with tinted panels in amber and blue, while others stay open to the sky. Climbing vines rise from timber planters and wrap the frame, and a wood deck replaces the hard paving underfoot. People sit on the planter edges or stand under the curve, and framed images hang inside the shell, suggesting it can also hold displays. Light reaches the deck coloured, filtered and patterned by the cells.

This is where the practical half of the team's statement appears: shade, seating and planting in a square that offers little of any. The planting softens the geometry and makes the shell feel alive, and the coloured panels give each visit a different light depending on the hour.

Why This Project Matters

Wave 'Coral' shows that an intervention on a heritage site does not need to claim the centre to change how a place is used. By working at the edges and keeping its profile low, it leaves the monument's authority intact while giving pedestrians something the square lacks: a place to stop at their own scale, under shade and among plants.

Its open question is just as useful. The jury's remark about identical pieces points to the next step for any modular public sculpture: repetition creates a family, but the site should shape each member. A canopy that tuned its waves to the street, the garden or the river beside it would read the square as carefully as it already respects the obelisk.

View the Full Project

Project team

Designers: Dongpei Yue, 国一 黄, Xiaoqian Zhou

Competition and award

Editor's Choice, Sculpt[r] 2020

Jury

Francisco del Corral, CEO, WaterScales architects, Madrid, Spain

Location

Sweden

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