Fabric Tiki lanterns go Hollywood

A Polynesian garden and pool, surrounded by 15 massive fabric lanterns, inspires a relaxed tropical ambiance—despite its location on the sixth-floor roof deck of the tony 1600 Vine at Hollywood & Vine apartments in Los Angeles. The Legacy Lanterns, designed by RCH Studios (also architects of the apartment complex) and fabricated by Canvas Specialty, are nearly 4m tall, weigh 270kg each and resemble modernistic tiki torches. The project’s grand scale and visual pizzazz earned Canvas Specialty an Industrial Fabric Association International (IFAI) Outstanding Achievement Award for 2010.

Canvas Specialty worked with concept sketches from RCH Studios’ Samantha Harris to develop each lantern as a stand-alone fabric structure. A test version was UL-certified as an electrical fixture, the first hurdle, but the lanterns also had to be designed to withstand earthquakes and 136km/h wind speeds.