Sanctuary Doves Project

Over the last decade, the Taro’s Origami Studio team has worked on a wide variety of unique projects. We’ve created massive life-sized origami animal sculptures, cruise ship replicas, luxury car commercials, and even custom winter wonderlands.

But our newest project. with over a year and a half of planning to this point, will both draw on and surpass everything we’ve done to this point.

For the last 18 months the Taro’s senior design team of Frank Ling and Ben Friesen have been devising, planning, revising, and testing one of the largest origami installations anywhere. This is our first behind-the-scenes post about how we’re going to bring this massive vision to life.

1. BRAINSTORMING &

A SITE VISIT

In late 2022, the Taro’s team got a really intriguing request.  A church in the south was planning their centennial celebration and they were interested in commissioning a massive origami doves installation, similar to the one recently installed in Washington D.C.

The team was excited about the opportunity and planned a visit to see the space.  What they found was a magnificent and cavernous sanctuary, that would require thousands of models to fill.  Frank Ling got to work recreating the entire space in renders and dreaming up ways to bring the installation to life.

To start with, the team needed to land on the perfect dove. First of all it needed to be large enough to be seen from up to 70 feet up in the air, and then it also needed to be string enough so that it wouldn’t droop over the course of the many months that it would be installed. Once the doves were properly designed, there were a number of different approaches to telling their story. The first idea was to have several strands of doves intertwining and circling toward the ceiling.

2. DESIGN REVISIONS

After the first round of designs, there were a lot of conversations with the church about what they thought worked well ,and what needed to be expanded upon. Initially, the church thought 500 doves would be fine, but quickly increased that to over 1,300 after seeing the scaled doves in the rendered space. The next major hurdle was thinking about the rigging system required to bring any of this to life. At this point Frank moved to a more accessible setup of multiple birds on strings draped around different parts of the structure.  But while this direction made the setup and installation a lot easier, there was something lost in the overall look.

3. DELIVERY OF THE FINAL DESIGN

For the final round of revisions, the Taro’s staff flew back out to the church and met with the entire team.  There were representatives from the lighting, structural engineering, sound, choir, projections, hydraulic lifts, scaffolding, weddings, funerals, and grounds crews present to make sure the design worked for everyone.  For the final design Frank landed on a wonderful netting system that can be lowered to the ground for attaching all the doves and then raised into the final place.

Over the course of the trip, the team scheduled all the scaffolding needs, planned out the installation process, and showed off samples of the doves, paper, and netting for confirmation.  They then also got the proper attachment hardware pieces approved by the engineering team and got the final go ahead to begin production of the entire installation.  There will be many more discussions and updates along the way until the November 2024 installation, but the entire staff at Taro’s is thrilled to bring this unique vision to life.