ASCENSION — “COCO”
Monumental Art Installation
Creative Direction + Design Development + Fabrication + Project Management

SEARCH+RESQ collaborated with Crimson Society to design and fabricate Ascension, a monumental origami-inspired crane created for the 2010 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Standing approximately 45 feet high with a 150-foot wingspan, the installation transformed the delicate geometry of folded paper into an architectural-scale experience.

Built from a lightweight aluminum truss and tension-wire framework wrapped in more than 7,000 square feet of mesh fabric, Coco was engineered to balance scale with lightness. More than 100 individual components came together to create the sweeping form, allowing light, air, and movement to pass through the structure while giving the enormous crane the appearance of floating above the festival landscape.

From the beginning, the installation was designed to travel. Its modular construction allowed the entire sculpture to be dismantled and packed into a single 40-foot shipping container, then transported and reconstructed in a completely different environment.

Following its debut at Coachella, Ascension traveled to Mexico City, where it was reassembled and transformed for the launch of NBC Universal Latin America’s Sci-Fi channel—giving the same structure an entirely new identity, context, and life.