A Giant, Inflatable Quasi-Cathedral is Coming to New Zealand

Remember how great everything was as a kid? Bouncing on inflatable castles, crawling through the tube maze playground at Maccas, flying through the air on a device known as a swing being powered by a bigger person whose enthusiasm for pushing was always inversely proportionate to your enthusiasm for being pushed.  Those were the days. And then you grew up and the scales fell from your eyes and suddenly a few bounces, if anything, on that castle were enough, the maze became a stupid, kind of grotty playground and your days of swinging 9-5 were retired. Doing all that stuff repeatedly for hours on end just didn't feel that interesting or amazing anymore. Which is fine, and you now get to do plenty of fun adult activities to compensate, but sometimes one still gets a bit nostalgic for the way things were.

Enter ARBORIA. The soon-to-arrive pop-up structure aims to restore your childhood sense of wonder to its former glory. The inflatable sculpture, designed by Architects of Air, is a giant, four-dome inflatable sculpture decorated with a kaleidoscope of colours lit by natural light filtering through the coloured, translucent PVC. The tree-inspired, airlocked structure, has been been described as "somewhere between a womb and a cathedral".

Built on the same principles of architecture as those found in Gothic cathedrals and mosques, ARBORIA offers a luminous maze consisting of domes that stretch up to ten metres tall and winding pathways. To match the tree theme, a soundscape originating from the Ecuadorian Cloud Forest will play inside the space.

The ARBORIA was built in 2015, and has been making stops throughout Switzerland, Germany and the UK. It'll be taking root in Aotea Square in Auckland on Thursday 24 September and will be available to explore from then until Sunday 11 October.