A great example by Gramazio & Kohler how christmas lights could look in future; Here’s a short description by the architects themselves:

” ‘Distinctive, generous, unique’—these were some of the qualities expected of the Christmas illuminations in Zurich’s internationally renowned shopping street. ….We designed a continuous band of lights, 1.1 km long, using 275 tubes of light, which we called “The World’s Largest Timepiece”.
In terms of urban planning, the installation connects the railway station to the lake. Its simple, linear course turns the band of light into the visual backbone of the city, accentuating the appearance of the Bahnhofstrasse and its two slight yet distinct changes in direction. …

Light Tubes
The 7 m high, round tubes had to provide light evenly in all directions, and be able to withstand heavy windloads despite being light in weight. We therefore had to find a rigid, robust casing material that would also transmit light.
Eventually we chose wound glass fibre technology: a special manufacturing process in which glass fibres are soaked in resin and spun around a mandrel. We were fascinated by the additive logic of this process. The winder controls the stacking of the fibres via two computer-coordinated movements. A sliding carriage drives the glass fibres back and forth along the spinning mandrel, creating an extremely stable multi-layered tube. The stacking winder and the number of tiers and overlappings determine the rod’s flexural rigidity and torsional stiffness, as well as its transmission of light. …
The final tube was 7 m long and 15 cm in diameter, but its shell was only 2 mm thick; including the lighting and control technology, it weighed just under 23 kg. Intense engagement with the computer-operated production process allowed us to integrate two normally incongruent requirements into a single material, thus using wound glass fibres for lighting on this scale for the first time.

Xmas Generator
During the Christmas season the Bahnhofstrasse is illuminated for eight hours every night, with a constant flow of changing light sequences. Designing this 320-hour urban environment was an innovative, exciting and demanding task that stretched the classic architectural repertoire to include the algorithmic design of time-based sequences.
Thus the lights are “played” by custom software that controls the 8,800 LED bulbs in real time. We designed the parameters and rules of the algorithm to be potentially unlimited. The installation’s distinctive identity is conferred by the constant creation of new, unpredictable light patterns. Movement sensors affect the design and reflect what is going on below. But the Christmas lighting responds to people on the street gently and quietly, without overemphasising its interactivity.”

video by scharzpictures.com
via: gramaziokohler.com

Rundle Lantern will be launched at 7.30pm Friday 24 October! Be there as it lights up Adelaide for the first time. Join the celebration with music, entertainment and more.

Constructed around the face of the Rundle Street U-Park, the Rundle Lantern is a digital canvas that uses computer controlled LEDs to illuminate 748 square panels to deliver a unique platform for art. Its purpose is to enrich, invigorate and enliven the intersection of Rundle Street and Pulteney Street.

At 1066 square metres, the Rundle Lantern can be programmed to display simple numbers, letters and geometric shapes as well as an infinite array of lights, colour, morphing designs and patterns.

Rundle Lantern Alternate ColourIllumination is through 17,952 light emitting diodes (LED) configured as 5.984 of each colour – red, green and blue through 1496 units that each contain 12 clusters of red, green and blue LED’s. The LED’s can create any configuration of 16 million colours which are reflected upwards onto 748 aluminium panels of 1.1 m x 1 m.

The Rundle Lantern was designed by Fusion, an Adelaide-based agency for the digital age following a competitive design tender by the Adelaide City Council’s Urban Design team.

The Rundle Lantern was launched at the end of October and operates each night from dusk to midnight, with hours extended for special events.

via: Fusion, cityofadelaide

The documentation of our Media Facades Exhibition Berlin 2008 is now available.
The Exhibition takes place at Deutsches Architektur Zentrum (German Center for Architecture)
October 16 – December 12 2008 and was curated by Gernot Tscherteu
have a look at
Videos
Photos
Exhibition Companion (Catalogue)

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see photos in bigger size / © wolfleeb.com

Download the MEDIA FACADES EXHIBITION COMPANION (7 mb)
including all exhibited projects and an extensive introductory text by the curator Gernot Tscherteu about MEDIA FACADES: FUNDAMENTAL TERMS AND CONCEPTS.

for more info [click here].

The ‘Medien und Raum’ Studio is a master course subject taught by Dr. Haeusler at the HfT Stuttgart – Hochschule für Technik. The Studio is part of a new research focus at the university on media architecture and interactive architecture. ‘Medien und Raum’ focused on the architectural integration of state of the art media technology. The two projects presented ‘Concrete LED Façade’ by Angela Renz and Dominik Kommerell and ‘Lochblech LED Façade’ by Ute Schweinle, Melek Güler and Andrea Fackler are prototypes resulting from this studio. Both projects were conducted as scientific research projects where conditions and materials were tested and documented and the prototypes are a result of the research.

Can a deactivated media façade transform back to an architectural surface or to ask the question the other way around can an architectural surface temporarily become a media façade? Both presented projects offer a possible answer to the question – the architectural surface is, when activated, a media façade that can display media content without having a persistent urge for new media contents. This urge is the result of media technology that exists as an added element onto architectural surfaces that when deactivating the technology unmasks the assembling of parts. Through an amalgam of architectural surface and technology one can create a media augmented element that is able to transform either to a space-defining element or a message-delivering vehicle.

Links: Medienraum, Mevaco GmbH, Hochschule für Technik – Stuttgart

This project has been shown at the Media Facades Exhbition Berlin 2008 and was published in the Exhibition Companion
(download the Catalogue Pdf – 7 Mb).

The O2 World Arena is located on 50 acres along the Spree River near the Berlin Wall East Side Gallery in the heart of Berlin, Germany. The arena seats approximately 17,000 people. Grand opening ceremonies were Sept. 10, 2008. The first event, a Metallica album release party, was Sept. 12, 2008.

- The south end of the arena features a curved glass facade that overlooks a plaza area. The plaza area leads to a remnant of the Berlin wall and the Spree River approximately 225 yards (210 meters) away.
- The facade is approximately 380 feet (116 meters) long by 40 feet (12 meters) tall.
- The facade is built on a 104-degree curve with an average radius of 213 feet (65 meters).
- There are 117 vertical mullions spaced slightly more than 3 feet (1 meter) horizontally across the facade.
- Each mullion is angled toward the ground from the top by 9 degrees.
- In conjunction with the building’s architects, LightWild custom designed a mullion cap that seamlessly integrates into the building’s architecture and also includes LightWild Pixels, a color-controlled architectural LED lighting source.
- Each mullion has 60 Pixels spaced about 8 inches (.2 meters) vertically.
- In all, there are 7,020 LightWild Pixels installed in the vertical mullions on the facade of the arena. Each Pixel includes 40 individual LEDs, meaning 280,800 LEDs are in use on the facade.
- The LightWild Pixels on the facade display colorful moving graphics and video effects that are created with the popular Adobe Flash software application.
- Data is communicated from the arena control room to the facade through a LightWild-designed network that transmits DMX signals over Ethernet.

via: www.lightwild.com

“Water and sustainability” is the motto of this year’s international world exhibition held from 14 June to 14 September in Zaragoza, Northern Spain. In 140 pavilions, approximately 100 nations are presenting solutions for the responsible use of the precious resource. Ledon’s contribution is the visionary illuminated façade “Wall of Africa”, an impressive example of the variable use of light-emitting diodes.

Light as a medium of communication
In compliance with the world exhibition’s objective to promote and continuously develop innovative technologies on a sustainable basis, Ledon created a media façade spanning more than 1,500 square metres. In collaboration with the exhibition stand designers and builders Nüssli and architects from Atelier Brückner, a concept was devised which incorporates more than 220,000 LEDs and is intended to visualise the theme of the Expo and bring it to life.
As each pixel can be individually addressed, a wide variety of light shows and videos with seamless transitions can be realised. In addition, arrays of semi-transparent plastic squares flexibly arranged on the façade flutter in the wind, reminiscent of moving water. While by day African landscapes are created across the façade, by night climatic events such as thunderstorm clouds and impressions of African people and animals are shown on the video wall.

via: ledonlighting.com, atelier-brueckner

This project has been shown at the Media Facades Exhbition Berlin 2008 and was published in the Exhibition Companion
(download the Catalogue Pdf – 7 Mb).

The Media Facade Conference 2008 will take place on Oct 17 and 18. Please check the conference program. Still tickets available. Please register directly at DAZ.

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The main objective was to create an inviting and attractive façade which at the same could be used for commercial messages. Currently the Creative LED Media façade is used for animations, advertisement, logo’s and artistic color effects. The orignal idea of the architect was to mount LED pixels on every cross section of a flexible steel net (part of the building is covered by such a net).

Philips Vidiwall evaluated this concept and proposed a solution based on laser cut steel panels with 85% transparancy. The pattern in the steel panels is diamond shaped, based on the diamond shapes of the steel net. On every cross section of the diamond pattern a full color LED pixel is mounted.

This solution gives optimal results on creating the shape, picture quality and viewing angle of the LED display. The curved transparent LED display is almost invisible during the day due to its transparency and has full visibility during the night.
The 80m width and 8m height display (640m2) contains 37.620 individually controllable full color pixels. The system is connected to a media server to play animations.

via: www.lighting.philips.com

This project has been shown at the Media Facades Exhbition Berlin 2008 and was published in the Exhibition Companion
(download the Catalogue Pdf – 7 Mb).

Aleph is an experimental public display, that is using the spaces, people and objects it faces as a palette to display messages from hidden viewpoints. When looking at a small mirror, it reflects a fraction of the space around us, when looking at a mirror façade, it reflects most things around us, containing segments that are dark or bright, red or green. But if we build a matrix of small mirrors, which can adjust their tilt according to the site they are facing, we can create a display that uses the ever changing flux of the place to show images from certain points in space.
Concept explaining collage This image is generated from unedited photos using a mirror and tilting it to reflect various brightness levels

It will not be comprehendible from all viewpoints, just from specific ones, asking visitors to explore the space, or providing surprising flashes in a public setup that can stay around the edge of comprehension. We can for example limit this point to the height of a child, so whenever she or he looks at the mirror, drawings emerge from the reflections of the clouds, drawings that appear only for them, that adults will not be able to see.

via: www.aether.hu

This Project is some years old; even older than Blinken Lights and also very influential. By posting it now, we are fixing a big hole in our collection

The BBL, an ING bank decided to organize a major event around their headquarters in Brussels, Belgium to celebrate the new Millennium. The bank’s goals were to valorize its unique architecture and clearly identify the bank to the building. The extraordinary building designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill was an absolute inspiration to the Magic Monkey design team.

The Magic Monkey turnkey solution (original concept, design, installation & management) was to convert the entire 2000 m2 façade of the building into a giant video display transparent to the occupants of the building but highly visible to the thousands of people driving by everyday. The project was inaugurated on December 8th 1999. Everyone was invited to participate and create their own images and animations by downloading a free animation interface from the burgeoning web (remember dial-in connections!).

As soon as a new animation was uploaded via the website created for the project, participants would receive an email thanking them for their participation and telling them when their animation would play on the building. Entire families could then come see their animations on the building or watch from the web cam. The Marnix Monumental Interactive Matrix project was a huge success, lots of participations and a big impact on people’s imagination. The Bank was delighted and so was everyone else. As a little bonus, a jury of artists (Yvaral, Yann Kersalé, Robert Palmer and Franco Dragone) was invited to award 4 equal prizes of 2000 Euros to their favorite animations for the 1st edition and 4 equal prizes of 2001 Euros for the second edition.

via: www.magicmonkey.net