cake-like layers stack into a shared motion installation in china, bringing strangers into sync

"Turn the circular base, and the whole structure begins to respond, gears catching one another as movement travels upward through its stacked layers. The form borrows from a celebration cake, with layered rings rising one above the other, soft in appearance yet precise in construction. Inside, one tier moves forward, and the next reverses, creating a continuous back-and-forth rhythm."

"Twirl Tower comes alive through collective effort. One person can start the movement, but it's never quite enough. The installation asks for more hands, more bodies, more presence. Gradually, strangers fall into sync, turning together without needing to negotiate or explain, and as the tower spins, light and color ripple across its surface."

"With Twirl Tower, the team at Daxing Jizi Design shifts attention from the object itself to what happens around it. The real outcome isn't just the spinning structure but the interactions it sets in motion."

Twirl Tower, created by Daxing Jizi Design for Shenzhen's 2026 Super New Year event, is an interactive kinetic structure designed as a layered celebration cake form. Visitors rotate a circular base to activate internal gears that travel upward through stacked rings, with alternating tiers moving in opposite directions. The installation requires collective effort—one person can initiate movement, but multiple participants create synchronized rotation that produces shifting colors and patterns. The project extends to Twirl Chairs, circular and semi-arc benches placed throughout the site featuring matching visual language. The design prioritizes the social interactions and community engagement generated around the structure rather than the object itself.

Read at designboom | architecture & design magazine