"Manufactured by Aggregate Industries, Zaha Hadid's Urban Nebula explored the plastic quality of pre-cast concrete and its potential as a medium for repetitive and fluid form.
The work, weighing 28 tonnes, was composed of 150 unique blocks of highly polished black pre-cast concrete bolted together to form a perforated wall. For many people it transformed their view of concrete.
Urban Nebula was exhibited at the Southbank Centre for a month from mid September 2007 where it was viewed by over one million people and attracted extensive press coverage — not just in the trade press but across national newspapers, monthly magazines and international publications.
Ben Evans, London Design Festival Director remembers the work being installed on the South Bank. 'Zaha chose to go with highly polished black concrete. And she created a form that was 150 concrete blocks that had near zero tolerance. Which meant that if one of them was 5mm to the left the whole thing didn't fit together. It was a challenge to install this but it was a very, very beautiful piece of work."
Some pictures from ZH blog about the manufacturing process
Source:
http://www.londondesignfestival.com/page/size-matter-2007-zaha-hadid
http://zahahadidblog.com/projects/2007/08/17/urban-nebula
