Perforated Wearable Landscapes: Dion Lee Resort 2016 |

Perforated elements integrated in modern buildings are not a new trend: we do have several examples of buildings all over the world with pierced surfaces, façades or lace-like steel mesh elements.

Rather than being merely decorative means, these features allow designers to play with light and shadows in intriguing ways, create transparency and achieve openness, positively impacting on the people populating such structures by guaranteeing them a wider sense of space.

The Messe Basel New Hall designed by Herzog & De Meuron Architects is one of the many examples of such perforated buildings. Located in the north of Basel, the structure features three ten-metre-high halls.

Though the key architectural element is a wide opening in the roof that looks like forming a sort of vortex, one distinctive feature is the façade made of articulated twisting bands that look as if they were made of strips of woven fabrics, details that are perfectly shown in the pictures taken by Hufton + Crow.

There is something similar in the Resort 2016 collection of Australian designer Dion Lee. The designs included look like a revised and simpler version of some of Lee's garments from his Autumn/Winter 2015-16 collection, recreated in a palette comprising graphic black and white, pale blue, and orange.

The main inspiration for the Resort collection was the horizon, but, through his horizontal perforations around the hemlines (at times forming rigid ruffles on skirts), Lee added some interesting dynamic variation to a motif that may have otherwise been rather boring. What's really striking is actually the similarity between some of the pictures taken by Hufton + Crow during certain times of the day when the light kisses the white surface of the building giving it a soft blue edge and a blue suede dress and separates in this collection.