Living Light

A project that caught my eye a while ago is ‘Living Light’ by The Living, architects in New York. It is a permanent public pavilion in Seoul that visualises air quality data from the city. Although according to their website it hasn’t been completed yet, images are starting to appear.

The lines represent neighborhoods so, broadly speaking, you can spot which areas of the city currently have pollution issues. You are also able to communicate with the structure via text message to receive more in depth information about the air quality. More lights illuminate when it communicates in this way, as a visual gauge of public interest.

As Ruairi noted early last year, The Living always have a few research projects on the go, what they call ‘flash research’. With a budget of less than $1k, a project duration of less than three months, and the idea of finishing up with a full scale prototype, its a simple recipe for producing interesting projects.

As a newbie to the world of architecture I find it amazing that a short timeframe and a small budget can allow such developments in that realm. We often find it hard enough in digital media to accomplish these things to any major degree of success without needing to consider architecture’s expensive and challenging areas like construction materials.

The following images are of River Glow, another R&D project of theirs. They will be exhibiting a similar project in New York starting September 2009.

“Two networks of floating interactive tubes will house a range of sensors below water that will monitor the presence of fish, water quality, and hydrodynamic forces. This data will then be displayed above water using an array of LED lights, along with wireless sensor communication and a text-messaging interface so that citizens can communicate with it from the shoreline.” See Situated Technologies: Toward the Sentient City.

Article on The Living. Images from The Living.

Add comment July 13th, 2009