Lucas —

Jea’s home village, suspended in the sky over the desert wasteland of the Kut, is built on the bleached and rusted skeleton of ancient machinery. The structure is held aloft by enormous winches that spool cables anchored in the distant mountains. In times of emergency, the village can be lowered to the ground, although most consider the Kut to be more dangerous than anything that could happen in the sky. Nobody can remember the last time the winches were released — or even if they still work.

These enormous mechanisms went through months of  research and design work. Inspired by ski lifts and guitar tuning pegs, the winches needed to be both baroque and obtuse — something that could seem primitive but also beyond the villagers’ technological comprehension.