AURUA "Super Star"

On December 31, 2025, the "Super Star" was ignited along the bank of the Li River in Yangshuo, Guilin, Guangxi, serving as the centerpiece installation of the AURUA 2025–2026 New Year Arts Festival. The project was led by architect Ma Yansong. Themed around "Gathering and Carrying Wishes," it responds directly to humanity's collective yearnings and shared hope for the future.

As the structural engineering consultant for the project, bespoke. collaborated closely with MAD Architects. Our comprehensive scope spans structural concepts, engineering analysis, fabrication-ready modeling, construction documentation, as well as on-site construction monitoring and quality control—ensuring the precise realization of the architectural concept while safely navigating yet another complex engineering challenge.

1 / 概念挑战
Challenging Concept

The starting point of the story was when our client said they wanted to design a hanging, burnable installation by the Li River.

Unlike past years' fire towers placed on the ground, this year’s AURUA installation raised the idea of being suspended in the air, which added a lot of uncertainty for burning. When MAD contacted us at the end of November, they had the concept of the floating star, but all the technical and structural viability of the project was yet to be clarified, discuss and coordinated together to ensure the structure and the fire event during New Year Eve will proceed safely.

Designing "for" fire is fun and unconventional. Client requested to have the fire event burn for around 12 minutes, a significant increase compared to the previous editions. Many challenges have been overcome during the whole design process, and the final result has been greatly praised by the whole design and client team, as well as general public.

2 / 领会设计意图
Design Intention

To ensure that the final built reality aligns flawlessly with the initial design intent, intensive technical deliberation, organization, and verification are required.

Yet, the most critical prerequisite for formulating any technical solution lies in deeply understanding the intent—and deciphering the information hidden beneath the surface of the object, which is often invisible or intangible.

After the concept was raised, everyone was feeling that this design could work and be very successful, but many technical challenges were yet to be well thought of to ensure the built sculpture will match with initial intention. This is where we came into play.

As always for this kind of work, our first move has not been to jump into structure analysis and 3D detailing. We took a few days to feel, understand and make this concept ours, with our technical eyes and engineering feeling. Understanding architects' intention and the message behind the object, which is often invisible and imperceptible, is the key to be able to provide holistic technical solutions. We then started to dream together with them while always keeping an eye on the reality, local site characteristics and constraints, structure safety and structure aesthetic.

3 / 从落地性出发
Practical Thinking

Driven by remote collaboration, the project leveraged video conferencing and tablets as visual coordination media, ensuring an agile, high-efficiency interface between design and fabrication.

This project was very special as we did not have the time to go through all the design phases we usually experience on more standard projects. We went through conceptual design to fabrication model and drawings directly.

Thanks to our experience of such kind of installation and also considering all the specificities of that project and site, we were able to provide solutions that fit with the needs. We were introduced to the construction and installation team from the beginning of the process. Through several online meetings together, they reviewed our technical proposals and basically agreed on everything.

Our experience dealing with complex structures and geometries, while always considering the practical side of the problem were key to the success of the installation. Making sure that no information is lost in the process, and that the necessary information that each person needs to get is understood and accepted thoroughly and happily, all those are what we consider in every of our projects:

How to name the profiles,

How to avoid mistakes during installation,

How to ensure installation can be handled smoothly,

How to prevent any misunderstanding between design team and construction team,

How to make sure language barrier isn’t an obstacle but a force to the project?

4 /  不可见的技术
Invisible Engineering 

Although quite simple as a unique hanging object. Many hidden aspects have been considered to ensure the success of the project.

The structural complexity of this installation lies not just in its suspension, but in the dynamically changing conditions throughout the burn. Our engineering analysis tackled several critical variables from the outset.

From material analysis to fire safety considerations, from static structure calculation to redundancy analysis for potential cable-snapping scenarios or losing strength due to heat propagation, alongside the variable loads of wishing plaques and the center-of-gravity shift within the asymmetrical star geometry. All these challenges were resolved in the background, entirely unseen by the client or the architects.

Our structure analysis and model assumptions were based on probability and number of wishing plaques to be hung on the structure. By its nature, the star-like shape was not completely balanced and changing its geometry to a complete symmetrical object would have been too much of a design change. We did perform non-linear analysis to ensure the deflection resulting from this gravity center eccentricity were acceptable visually and also manageable for construction and installation process.

Each step of the construction assembly process was simulated in calculation software to predict star movement. This stage analysis process was used to discuss and drive the whole installation on site.

Model vs. Photo Comparison  © bespoke.

5 / 过程把控
Realization Control

Thanks to our experience of this kind of installation, we applied our knowledge to provide the construction team with what they need.

No superfluity no unnecessary drawings or data that only our team can understand but no one else.

When started to discuss with client and construction team, my statement to them was clear, " we will provide you exactly what you need, we will understand your fabrication process and will give you all the information necessary to ensure smooth construction and installation, while controlling the design. "

For easier fabrication and time management, we rationalized the overall MAD geometry into 3 types of branches, each type has same geometrical generation logic and only the length is different. The 15 timber branches are connected to a central core made of Stainless Steel. This core also serves as connection for the 4 suspension cables and ensures the stability of the installation during fire.

© bespoke.

The central core geometry directly derived from the branch geometry and angles. All the Core node faces were laser cut with all necessary holes and naming marking prepared for easy assembly and installation in factory and site.

As per experience, naming convention was chosen to follow construction logic and also to avoid any language confusion, between local team in Yangshuo, design team in MAD Beijing and our team in Shanghai. Daily video call were made to ensure smooth progress and make sure all questions can be answered. Our Rhino model was used on site on an iPad to ensure perfect visual correspondence between design model and installation progress.

On the morning after the New Year's Eve burning ritual, we were surprised to find floral artist Alfie Lin adorning the "Super Star" with vibrant, life-filled flowers, autumn fruits, and moss. "After the sparks, blossoms carry the legacy." The burnout of the starlight marks the very threshold of the artist’s creation, as well as the beginning of a brand-new year.