The Digital Water Pavilion (DWP) is an experimental design initiated by the Smart Cities Group (MIT Media Lab) for the Expoagua Zaragoza 2008. It includes a tourist office and information point with meeting and exhibition space for the Milla Digital area, an urban campus of technology and media spaces for artists and designers.
Robotics
The project employs two robotic devices to generate a range of effects. The first is a media ‘façade’ of sorts, rendered in water. More than 3000 solenoid valves controlled by special software and an array of sensors allow for the display of information and graphics which are responsive to people and objects in close proximity. Images materialize on a continuously downward scrolling one-bit display. This configuration produces a number of interesting conditions. The materiality of the façade itself is dependent upon an ‘on’ condition. Unlike light-based media facades such as the Kunsthaus in Graz, the DWP has no material façade. Both enclosure and threshold are temporal, introducing new possibilities to disciplinary problems of enclosure (i.e. access, aperture, thermal control). Stasis is only achievable through prolonged ‘on’ or ‘off’ cycles - deviations are read as animate figures. The addition of proximity sensors allows for interaction between the building envelope and its users, such as a program which allows the facade to open to an approaching body (see diagrams below).
The second robotic device in the project is an array of pneumatic pistons which also serve as columnar supports for the roof. This enables the structure to exist in two fundamental modes, each with distinct spatial qualities. In the ‘open’ mode, the roof delineates the boundaries of interiority, further modulated through the water curtain as previously described. In the ‘closed’ mode, the roof is lowered to the ground and becomes a reflecting pool, across which the protruding volumes of the info-box and meeting point are visible, but inaccessible. The actuated roof effectively allows the building to move between types – from fountain, to pavilion, to statuary.
See http://www.dwp.qaop.net for more information.
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