Media Architecture Institute

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.

Walking down the Ginza is like strolling through a glossy magazine – and these buildings are the ads. These brand images are largely communicated through the facades, which increasingly resemble screens. The Chanel store uses a facade composed of hundreds of thousands of LEDs – a high-res building-sized video screen. Uniqlo is an exception to the high end brands in Ginza – having built its brand providing basic clothing at reasonable prices. So in contrast to the sleekness of the other facades, our approach at Uniqlo Ginza was to go simple and basic.

“nature04” is a Computer controlled light work for Lille 2004 – European Cultural Capital, 2004 by Kurt Hentschäger. The project transforms the 20 story Lilleurope Tower into a luminous kinetic sculpture. It´s dramaturgy is based on the idea of a jaquemart, a mechanical public clockwork, the basis of our technologically advanced culture. The mechanical clock, giving the time by slicing it up in standardized temporal units, marks the final transition from experiencing time as a continuum without a beginning and an end to perceiving it as sequential, as a sequence of discrete events lined up on a timeline.

GreenPix – Zero Energy Media Wall – is a groundbreaking project applying sustainable and digital mediatechnology to the curtain wall of Xicui entertainment complex in Beijing, near the site of the 2008 Olympics.Featuring the largest color LED display worldwide and the first photovoltaic system integrated into a glass curtain wall in China, the building performs as a self-sufficient organic system, harvesting solar energy by day and using it to illuminate the screen after dark, mirroring a day’s climatic cycle.The Media Wall will provide the city of Beijing with its first venue dedicated to digital media art, while offering the most radical example of sustainable technology applied to an entire building’s envelope to date. The building will open to the public in May 2008, with a specially commissioned program of video installations and live performances by artists from China, Europe and the US.The project was designed and implemented by Simone Giostra & Partners, a New York-based office with a solid reputation for its innovative curtain walls in Europe and the US, with lighting design and façade engineering by Arup in London and Beijing. Content manager Luisa Gui will coordinate the opening program with software development by New York-based media artist Jeremy Rotsztain.

JetBlue knows its customers, thanks to an innovative traveling exhibit designed to capture its passengers’ innermost thoughts.

Known as “The Story Booth,” the interactive exhibit encouraged visitors to share their favorite JetBlue stories, which were filmed for use on the airline’s website and in its advertising campaigns. In order to attract visitors to the exhibit during its 10-city tour, the exterior had to be dynamic and eye catching. Color Kinetics’ LED lighting technology proved to be just the right tool.

In 2002, Ned Kahn worked with the staff of Technorama, the major science center in Switzerland, and their architects, Durig and Rami, to create a facade for the building which is composed of thousands of aluminum panels that move in the air currents and reveal the complex patterns of turbulence in the wind. The facade is visible from the large urban plaza in front of the museum.

via: nedkahn.com

Troika has been commissioned by Artwise Curators to create ‘All the time in the world’, a 22m long electroluminescent wall that marks the entrance to the First and Concorde Galleries lounges in the new Heathrow Terminal 5. ‘All the time in the World’ extends the conventional notion of a world clock, which commonly concentrates on capital cities in different time zones, by linking real time to places with exciting and romantic associations.

On October 6, Pleinmuseum visited Paris, as part of the Nuit Blanche. In cooperation with the Institut Néerlandais, celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, and the city of Paris, the pavilion stroke down at Place de la Bastille. Pleinmuseum is a mobile exhibition pavilion that places itself at the hearts of public life, opens as a flower, takes on new appearances every day and travels on after a while. Every evening from sunset Pleinmuseum will present a variety of the 100% digital collection. In each location also new artists are invited to create a new contribution to Pleinmuseum.

In 2007 The Graffiti Research Lab took control of the KPN Building, one of the permanent media facades, turning the area into the People´s Revolutionary Green Laser Light District, a place to display your uncurated animations and graphics. The back-side of the building is becoming a giant wall you can write on with a BFL (big fucking laser).

La Porte is located at the entrance to the Shinsaibashi shopping area, which is one of the most famous upmarket districts featuring high-end department store and super brand boutiques. (like Ginza at Tokyo)