Golden A' Design Award Winner 2022
Robin Wang's Villa interior operates as a complex symbolic system encoding aspirational narratives through the deliberate juxtaposition of earthbound domesticity and celestial ambition, with the suspended flying machine functioning as the primary iconographic element carrying multiple layers of culturally resonant meaning. The ornithopter form references Leonardo da Vinci's visionary drawings and the broader Renaissance tradition of marrying artistic imagination with scientific inquiry, positioning the inhabitant as heir to a lineage of creative exploration. The gear mechanisms and brass components visible at the aircraft's center invoke the aesthetic vocabulary of the mechanical age, suggesting human mastery over natural forces through ingenuity and craftsmanship while the organic flowing canvas wings maintain connection to natural flight, creating a synthesis of mechanical and organic that echoes Art Nouveau sensibilities. The deep cerulean blue of the sculptural staircase carries traditional associations with sky, infinity, and transcendence, its faceted crystalline geometry suggesting both precious stone and the angular calculations of aeronautic design. The chromatic dialogue between warm wood tones and cool blue establishes a symbolic temperature gradient where earthly warmth below yields to celestial coolness in the ascending zones. The double-height void itself functions symbolically, creating a cathedral-like vertical aspiration within secular domestic space. The telescope placed on the coffee table reinforces themes of observation, discovery, and reaching toward distant horizons, while the diagonal floor pattern suggests dynamic movement rather than static repose. This interior may be interpreted as a contemporary interpretation of the Renaissance studiolo, a space designed for contemplation, collection, and the cultivation of knowledge where material objects serve as portals to imaginative realms and human achievement becomes the subject of daily meditation.
Humans evolved from the sea, live on the land, and can swim in the bosom of the sea. When we see birds flying high in the sky, we can't help asking: does human life stop between land and sea? Five hundred years ago, leonardo Da Vinci wrote the Manuscript of The Flight of Birds. He was the first person to design an aircraft in theoretical form, and it was also a great attempt to touch the sky.