Elegant Embellishments have installed a depolluting facade on the Torre de Especialidades at the Hospital Manuel Gea Gonzalez, Mexico City. The 2500m2 quasicrystal facade is composed of prosolve370e modules- three dimensional architectural modules with photocatalytic pollution-fighting technology.

prosolve370e is a decorative architectural module that reduces air pollution in urban environments. The modules are a functional, yet highly decorative modular ornament that achieve a synergy between design form and molecular technology. Inspired by fractals in nature, the undulating shapes maximize the surface area of active coating to diffuse light, air turbulence and pollution.

The modules contain superfine titanium dioxide (TiO2), a pollution-fighting technology that is activated by ambient daylight. When positioned near pollution sources, the modules break down and neutralize NOx (nitrogen oxides), VOCs (volatile organic compounds), SO2, and FPM directly where they are generated.

Derived from a quasicrystal grid, the underlying mathematical grid generates patterns that appear irregular, yet are made of only two constituent types. This modularity creates aperiodic, biomimetic tesselations that bear strong semblance to sponges or corals. The tiling method ultimately enables visual randomness, typically associated with the bespoke, to occur in a modular system.

As a modification to traditional built structures, prosolve370e essentially “tunes buildings” to perform better to the invisible criteria of air pollution.

A massive inflated balloon erected inside the Gasometer Oberhausen, Germany is purported to be the largest inflated envelope suspended without a skeleton. Designed and installed by artists team Christo and the late Jeanne-Claude, Big Air Package is a radical play of both space and light, pushing the limits of scale for a temporary installation. Read the rest of this entry »

Designer Saleem Khattak combines his fascination with light and modernist form in Archilume, a luminaire that evokes the best qualities of incandescent lighting: warmth, comfort and intimacy. Archilume’s unassuming simplicity masks a visionary design that transforms energy-efficient LED lighting. A clear cylindrical lens with a conical diffuser emits an elegant glow without the glare of a visible light source. It radiates a gentle light, evoking ripples on water, and represents a revolution in the use of LEDs.

A study in the science of lighting, Archilume uses the principles of light transmission, reflection and diffusion to create a sleek, sculptural form suitable for modern or heritage-style interiors. The transparency of the fixture’s design suits it to a variety of design palettes. Read the rest of this entry »

“Lotus Dome,” interactive artwork by artist and architect Daan Roosegaarde, is a living dome made out of hundreds of ultralight aluminum flowers that fold open in response to human behavior.

When approached, the big silver dome lights up and opens its flowers. Its behavior moves from soft breathing to dynamic mood when more people interact. The light slowly follows people, creating an interactive play of light and shadow. The graphic representations of the lotus flower on the walls, and the deep bass sound, transforms the Renaissance environment into a “Techno-Church.”

The smart Lotus foil is specially developed by Studio Roosegaarde and their manufacturers, and is made from several thin layers of Mylar that fold open and close when touched by light. This high-tech craftsmanship is similar to the innovative thinking of the church’s architecture of the 16th century. Roosegaarde: “We’re updating Renaissance.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Leviathan as an ancient sea monster is mentioned six times in the Book of Job where it is described in detail. Among Job’s portrayal of Hell’s gatekeeper are numerous material depictions manifesting the creature’s physical traits which allow him to move speedily at sea despite its heavy build. His back has rows of shields tightly sealed together; Each is so close to the next that no air can pass between them; They are joined fast to one another; they cling together and cannot be parted; The folds of Leviathan’s flesh are tightly joined; they are firm and immovable; His chest is hard as a rock, ‘hard as a lower millstone’ (Book of Job). This underwater wriggling serpent is here re-imagined as armor for the human torso, inspired by the Leviathan’s anatomy and physiology. Composed of a thin stiff shell, cuts are introduced into the surface to allow for the flexibility required for movement and stretching. This body suit is designed as a single continuous surface with thin slots printed in two materials. Each slot is double-sided such that soft materials make up its internal composition providing comfort, while a stiffer material is deposited externally to provide for a protective outer shell.

Design: Neri Oxman in collaboration with W. Craig Carter (MIT) and Joe Hicklin (The Mathworks)
Photos: Yoram Reshef  Read the rest of this entry »

SOFTlab and The Living produced the exhibition design for ReGeneration at the New York Hall of science. ReGeneration includes ten installations produced by various artists that explore immigration, urbanization, and sustainability through art, science and technology. Our brief was for the exhibition design to not only be a platform for the other installations, but to also be an installation in and of itself making it one of the ten artist installations.

The New York Hall of Science is located in Queens, NYC, the most ethnically diverse county in the United States. The exhibition framed the idea of sustainability as a system that is exothermic. That New York City is an exothermic system that thrives on the infusion of energy through immigration and generates energy through ideas and knowledge. We looked at this idea at various scales: global, national, city, borough, etc. We found that it is not simply the infusion of various groups or energies into a system, but the mixing and tangencies of these energies and mixing that produces a “melting pot” of ideas. It is through this mixing and turbulence of many ideas that a larger community forms—one that can be seen as a larger whole while still retaining the ability to show a “finer grain,” much like the interconnected loops of an ecosystem, or like many local “weathers” within a regional or global weather system. We treated the overall exhibition as an opportunity for the mixing of various artists responding to the community in many ways, in hopes to create a critical mass of tangencies that extend an influence outside of the museum into the larger community.

We inverted the typical exhibition design of white walls and subdivisions and created a floating cloud that not only marked the zones of each artist installation but connected them under a common roof. More specifically, the “cloud” consists of multiple interconnected “weathers” at the multiple scales of the artwork, the community, Queens, New York City, the country, and the world. While each “weather” has its own features and identity, they have many overlapping, “common” themes, and there are many threads that tie them together into one “common” ecosystem. In other words, the cloud is a kind of weather for the Regeneration exhibition–but rather than a single weather, it is really several common weathers. Read the rest of this entry »

1001 was produced by the ID5 Interactive Systems faculty as the result of an iterative draft design process. Apart from design aspects, permanent adaption of the surface to the human body was the working team’s main focus. They adopted various approaches as a means of controlling spatial movements. CAD was essential in order to simulate specific deformation of the surface and, in subsequent work stages, to shape this deformation in all its conditions. The aim was for 1001 to be formally convincing not only as an object but also in every possible use situation. More than 30 clusters, each consisting of three elastic rods, are mounted on a spherical base and support the reclining surface, which has a corresponding geometrical pattern but consists of rigid segments. Read the rest of this entry »

The 3d printed nylon polymer lamp designed by Dr. Margot Krasojević is suspended by a spindle whereby it’s weight and form contribute to the angular momentum vector as it spins along its axis of rotation; it is affected by minor environmental changes such as temperature and air currents which rotate the light along its path of velocity. The light has a motion sensor diode clamped between both suspended 3d printed sections which powers the battery lighting the LED when in motion. As a result of it’s form, the light speeds up tremendously due to it’s conservation of angular momentum, the form of the light reduces it’s rotational inertia affecting it’s rotational speed which must increase to maintain constant angular momentum resulting in a brighter light. The light has been influenced by the physics behind ice skater spinning/a spinning top. Read the rest of this entry »

Kyiv National University of Architecture and Construction in Ukraine hold a workshop within the framework of conference “Contemporary education”. It was organized by the team of KG’MGarchitects studio. The main topic of workshop was using Autodesk Maya software for the design of architectural objects.

The first step served as a series of lectures designed to provide participants with tools (software), such as: modeling, the basics of direction of particles by the action of external forces and also the methods of simulation of physical processes in Maya. Lectures held by Iurii Kaygorodtsev, Tanya Zabavska, Andrew Mogylnyi and Kirill Tsuman. The principal aim was to acquire skills in using of digital methods to optimize the architectural spaces and structures. Examples were given by Frei Otto method of minimizing the ways (simulation sticking threads) and receiving of minimal surfaces (simulation of physics of materials).

Frei Otto’s method was used in first task to identify the pattern of spots which are more free from flows of people. Participants were invited to use one of the chosen spots to situate their own version of the bench. Read the rest of this entry »

If light is „the prime animator of space“, the most essential determinant in articulating the experience of design, than Stefan Wieland‘s lamps appear to challenge that hierarchy. Part of a larger collection of objects designed by the Frankfurt-based artist, these suspended lighting fixtures seek to overtake the senses and dominate the room. Spontaneous and deliberate at the same time, they have an almost synesthetic affect: they make you smell colors and taste sounds. Even the curious names of the lamps – Dark Kisses Melt Smoothly, The White of My Eyes, etc.- entail an abundance of tactile and visual associations describing an imagery that draws from emotions and senses, rather than ideas. Fragmented plates embrace the light in a sensuous movement that feels uninhibited. The luminaires are but moments captured in a perpetual child-like play, an act of improvisation freed from the imperative of making a definite design. Read the rest of this entry »