SHANGHAI (CHINA)
Client: Fundación Madrid Global
Date: 2009-2010
Status: Built
Program: Public Space and outdoor pavilion for the City of Madrid at Shanghai Expo 2010 .
Scope: Design, energy strategy and construction follow up process.
The Air Tree emerges as an experimental prototype of intervention in contemporary urban public space, capable of reactivating sites and creating the conditions to empower the use of the collective space. It is conceived as a technological urban furniture, which also serves as a virtual node of connectivity Madrid-Shanghai, where users can actively interact.
Its different technical layers enables multiple final configurations and a myriad of intermediate positions (opaque, translucent, transparent, bright, interactive, open, etc.). Different textiles for video projections allow an unlimited combination of scenarios adaptable to citizen needs. Its appearance can be transformed over the daily cycle, as well as through the different seasons. By sensors it is connected in real-time with the climatic conditions of Shanghai, constantly adopting the optimal physical and energy consumption configuration to generate climatic comfort for the citizens.
A 7.3 m diameter fan suspended by a tensegrity structure in the center of the space, at a height of 11.5 m provides air flows inside the space. Through a telescopic system the fan can be lowered several meters to come closer to the ground. The exact position and speed at each moment is determined according to the instant climatic conditions of the environment, real time monitored in the surroundings of the structure.
The project’s construction plans and specifications were published under a Creative Commons license, making this project one of the first “open source” contemporary architectural designs.
