Media Architecture Institute

Urban Alliance´s mission is to integrate modern communication technologies in the built environment in order to create interactive public spaces and objects. Urban Alliance combines expertise in design, content production, engineering and construction. This way UA is a one-stop-shop for tun-key mediatecture solutions. Urban Alliance works for developers, governments, advisers and architects on projects indoors and outdoors for purposes as city marketing, social safety and arts.

Situated in a breathtaking 7-story high glass atrium, The Comcast Experience is a joint gift to the citizens of Philadelphia from Comcast Corporation and Liberty Property Trust; one that combines sculpture, architecture and technology into an inviting and unique public environment. By transforming a public transportation hub into an artistic focal point for the city, The Comcast Experience encompasses a number of important “firsts.” From a technology standpoint, the world’s largest four millimeter LED wall is 83.3’ wide by 25.4’ high (25.38m x 7.74m), and is comprised of 6,771 Barco NX-4 LED modules. With 10 million pixels mounted in a seamless flat array, the wall provides an extremely high degree of photo-realism — five times the resolution of high-definition television.

• MegaPhone is Phonecall-Controlled, Real-Time, Multi-Player Collaborative Gaming Platform for Big Screens in Public Spaces, but we already said that. What we mean is, it’s a game you control with a phone call.
• MegaPhone is NOT a downloadable application that runs on your phone, and it’s NOT a wireless network, like Wifi or Bluetooth.
• There are two ways to send input to the display: keypad and voice. The keypad can be used much like a video game controller, and the volume and pitch of the phone’s microphone can also become input in the game.
• MegaPhone updates the game state on a shared screen, and can send custom audio and text messages back to each user. MegaPhone uses this mobile channel back to the caller to close the loop on out of home media advertising.

This interview was given to Scott Johnson and Ashlen Williams, graduate students from the University of Kansas currently developing a research project on “Communicative Architecture: An Analysis of How Digital Infrastructure Shapes Human Interaction in the Built Environment.”

1. How does the interactive, animated nature of the newest forms of media facades redefine public space?

Well, I think we all must admit that we simply don’t know. Always when a new technology emerges there are some prophets that predict salvation and the dawn of a new era of communication and there are others that warn against negative effects like light pollution or excessive advertising. In a sense both sides are true but one has to develop more differentiated points of view. In other words: an emotional but also rational discourse is needed in order to tame the chances and risks of this new field. The discussion has to be as public as possible and is to involve different stakeholders. – That’s a main reason for organising the Media Facades Festival in Berlin (http://www.mediaarchitecture.org/mediafacades2008/)

The winning competition entry for the “Espacio de Creación Artística Contemporánea” by Nieto Sobejano architects from Spain proposed the integration of a light- and media façade on the building surface facing the RíoGuadalquivir.

DAISY.WORLD by Thomas Nicolai is the simulation of an artificial self-monitoring ecosystem placed on an urban structure. Comparable to the rules in nature the computer simulation calculates the dynamic growth behavior of two artificial flower populations. Both species and the outer conditions are interlinked in feedback loops to a complex network of interaction – a permanent DRIFT, a spreading and retreat, an incessant self-balancing to adapt to every outer change – finally the idea of assertiveness and will power without supreme intervention. LIFE.

The Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planing at The University of Sydney has recently installed a SmartSlab LED screen inside the window display facing the yard in front of the faculty building.

SmartSlab has attracted quite some attention since it was introduced a few years ago by b consultants ltd, an architectural consultancy run by Tom Barker. It is specifically unique due to its resistant structure and modular approach: the screen is shipped in 600 x 600mm tiles that can be built up into large arrays of any size. The steel and polycarbonate structure allows it to be even used as flooring or curtain walls in buildings.