Milan 2016: coloured streamers erupt from the first-floor arches of a palazzo facade to create this undulating canopy designed by Beijing architecture studio MAD (+ slideshow).

Located in the Cortile d'Onore courtyard at the Università degli Studi di Milano, MAD Architects' Invisible Border installation comprises lengths of ETFE plastic stretched from the 15th century building down to the grassy square below.

A wavy metal frame is used to hold the strips taught, forming an extension of the building's covered passages for visitors to walk under.

"Architects usually creates borders by defining spaces ? what is inside and outside, what is nature and the artificial ? but today's society already has too many invisible borders," said MAD founder Ma Yansong. "As architects we should instead focus on how can we blur those borders and encourage interaction across them."
Related story: MAD's sinuous Harbin Opera House completes in north-east China

Five sets of ribbons follow the shapes of the arches they emerge from, before splaying out into a continuous form. Each is coloured to fade through a gradient from deep crimson at the top to pale orange-pink at ground level.

"You see the difference in each end, but the transition is very organic," said Yansong. "It's like we open up a conversation between the past and the present."

Visitors stood underneath are able to glimpse the sky through the translucent material and the thin g...