diller scofidio + renfro constructs canopy made of jeans

for milan design week, new york studio diller scofidio + renfro has constructed a tensile canopy made out of 300 pairs of denim jeans. named ‘off the cuff’, the installation continues DS+R’s interest in ready-made models and experimental fabrication techniques. while the individual pairs of pants allude to the human scale in relation to the built environment, the meshed and twisted structure has been designed to evoke a sense of community and collective architecture.

the canopy is made out of 300 pairs of denim jeans
image © rui teixeira (main image © designboom)

taking place in milan’s 5VIE design district, the fuorisalone event is presented within the courtyard of palazzo litta — a baroque building that dates back to 1761. the familiar use of denim, an everyman material, relates to the partially public nature of italian palazzo courtyards. ‘having two legs and one waist, they [the jeans] have an implicit structural logic. we started to see that we could combine these units, connecting their end points to construct a net-like tensile structure,’ explains liz diller of DS+R.

the installation continues DS+R’s interest in ready-made models
image © rui teixeira

viewing the individuals pairs of jeans as ready-made components, the project — described as ‘contemporary folly’ — reinterprets the garments as an architectural module. by connecting the jeans waist-to-waist and cuff-to-cuff, a tensile catenary grid is created, spanning the courtyard. the net seeks to give the impression of ‘a body imprinted in space’, but also a body ‘defamiliarized by repetition’.

the work occupies the courtyard of palazzo litta
image © rui teixeira

‘the only programmatic piece was that it had to be a roof of some sort — a little bit of protection,’ continued diller at the installation’s opening. ‘we have been screwing around with building materials and structural ideas for a long time, and, a while ago, we imagined using this very familiar unit of human scale in compression — but we never executed it. we thought maybe we can use this unit in tension and put it together in a more abstract way. it kind of jumps of off our duchampian starting point of starting with everyday objects and translating them to unfamiliar purposes.’

the familiar use of denim relates to the partially public nature of italian courtyards
image © rui teixeira