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Kas Oosterhuis:
Neeltje Jans The Netherlands, 1997 Body of the Saltwaterpavilion
The saltwater pavilion has evolved from the very beginning of the design process as a three-dimensional computer model. We kneaded, stretched, bent, rescaled, morphed, styled and polished. The delineation of the form is laid down in the digital genes of the design that hold the germ of life. The first idea is the genetic starting point for all subsequent steps in the development. We no longer accept the domination of platonic volumes, the simplistic geometry of cube, sphere, cylinder and cone as the basic elements of architecture. That resolution is much too low. Our computers allow us to command millions of coordinates describing far more complex geometries. The form gene underlying the saltwater pavilion's shape is an octogonal, faceted ellips which gradually transmogrifies into a guadrilateral along a three-dimensional curved path. Along that path the volume is first pumped up and then deflated again to form the sharply cut nose. The body juts out a whopping 12 metres over the inland sea of the Oosterschelde. It is an intriguing idea that a cyclops could pick up the pavilion without wrenching it out of its internal coherence. The saltwater pavilion is also a sculpture which is fashioned in accordance with its own laws and rules and for reasons that other people can never quite fathom. Then it is scrutinized by the public who, merely by looking at it and experiencing it, form an image of their own, strictly personal, laws and rules. And because of this self-sufficiency of form as interpreted by the independent observer, the salt-water pavilion is suddenly and simultaneously a hundred different things: a stranded whale, a late brancusi, a paramecium, a sea cucumber, a submarine, a lemniscate, a speedboat, a tadpole (with silver tail), a solidified droplet, a wave, a stealth bomber. Behaviour of the Saltwaterpavilion
Real Water You enter the saltwater pavilion under a giant wave. The wave is about 6 meters long and floods the lower floor, the WetLab, of the pavilion. As you flow together with the water down to the WetLab you enter the underwater world. Here everything is wet and slippery. Water is dripping from the walls and flowing over the floor. As the wave fills the WetLab you experience the tidal movements of the sea. You are pushed back by the rising water level and you'll have to wait for low tide before you can cross over to the other side of the WetLab. In the middle of the floor of the WetLab the water is drawn away. The WetLab is a dark and moist environment that is filled with real water. The changing colors of the various dimmed lights reflect on the wet surfaces of the floor, walls and ceiling and create an immersive underwater experience. In this wet atmosphere the glowing Hydra is like giant seaweed. The Hydra is constantly changing color and sounds travel through it. The sound is like a foreign language, you can follow the verbal flow but it remains incomprehensible. The Hydra is a continuous object. It's multiple lines travel through the entire pavilion. The Hydra keeps following the visitor; sometimes as construction, sometimes as interface but always transmitting information by ways of light and sound. Within the Hydra there are multi-colored fiberoptic cables and every 2 meters an active speaker system. All fibers and speakers are individually controlled by a central computer and react on visitors, changing weather conditions or pre-programmed algorithms. Real Worlds When you climb out of the WetLab you walk towards a panoramic view of the surrounding landscape. At first you see only a strip of the sky outside, then you scan down towards the horizon of the flat Dutch delta landscape and you end looking down on, and hovering over, the Oosterschelde seawater. The panoramic window is the only place inside the pavilion where you get a view of its direct surroundings. The availability of the view is controlled by the airbag. The airbag is an inflatable object that fits exactly in the opening of the window. When the airbag is inflated it fills the entire space and it closes the view. The closing and opening of the airbag is also controlled by the central computer and is part of the overall program of the pavilion. Virtual Water After the view on the landscape you turn and walk onto the wave-floor and into the Sensorium. The wave-floor is the gigantic torsion-volume that divides the entire building body into two parts: the WetLab and the Sensorium. In the Sensorium you are surrounded by all kinds of virtual representations of water. The five curved lines that stretch from one pole to the other correspond with the outer lines of the building body. Multi colored fiber optic cables in these lines illuminate the Sensorium from behind the polycarbonate skin. In both poles there is a set of red lights that is controlled by an interface in the Hydra. By pressing the interface you can activate the poles and make them glow in bright red colors. The color and dimming of the fibers is controlled by a series of sensorial parameters. The color sequence is generated from bitmaps of all kinds of weather types taken from the Internet. The dimming of the fibers is controlled by the biorhythm of the building, which changes according to an algorithm that has the weather conditions and water level outside of the building as its input. In addition to the color-scape there is the sound-scape in the Sensorium. Behind the polycarbonate skin there is an array of speakers. This array makes it possible to have the sound move dynamically through the space of the Sensorium. The same interface that controls the lights in the polar regions gives you influence on the sound. You can add sound samples to the sound-scape by pressing the interface or push the sound towards a certain region in the Sensorium. The Sensorium sound- and light-scapes varies from crisp to lucid and from looming to furious.
Virtual worlds On both
the surface of the wave-floor and the polycarbonate skin of the Sensorium
you see immersive projections of a series of virtual worlds. These worlds
all depict different perceptions of water or fluidity. The worlds are
generated by two SGI 02 computers and get their input from an interface
that is integrated in the Hydra. With 6 high-resolution dataprojectors
the worlds are projected on the surface of the Sensorium. The 6 worlds
are described as following: With these virtual worlds the building is extended into virtual space. The physical space continues seamless in virtual space. The navigator determines its own path and by doing so contributes to the sound- and color-scape of the Sensorium. The making of the body, parametric-design To efficiently construct a design like the saltwaterpavilion we had to develop a method to maintain both absolute control and absolute flexibility during the construction period. We developed the concept of parametric-design. Every inch of the building is different because of its fluid geometry. With parametric-design we describe the fluidly varying lines of the building volume in terms of parameters. To stay in control both economically and esthetically, we build a 3 dimensional database that was linked to the 3 dimensional model. From this database we generate the data for every specific participant in the building process. The builder received the information in the form of only a few principle details together with various tables with the parametric values. Sometimes these data was used directly as input for CNC machines and sometimes the data was used directly on the building site. Through parametric design we stayed in control of the building concept we developed for the saltwaterpavilion. Instead of fixing the building in 2 dimensional drawings, the saltwaterpavilion stayed liquid within its 3 dimensional database. The programming of the behaviour The basic colour pattern The data for the basic colour pattern for the colour environment is generated from a bitmap image. This bitmap image can be taken from the internet, snapped with a digital camera or directly composed in PhotoShop. The intensity of the bitmap pixels are automatically translated into colour values that can be understood by the lighting computer, the Avolite Rolacue Pearl. The Pearl runs this basic colour sequence continuously. How the basic colour sequence is generated is explained with two examples. In image 1.0 you see a bitmap that is taken from the a weather www-site on the internet to be used as input for the Table Generator (image 1.1). This programme (image 3.0) translates the change in pixel values into the 13 different colours that can be projected with the colour fibres. These colour fibres are 21 Martin Robocolor Pro 400 colour-changing spotlights with fibre optic adapter. Images 1.2 through 1.4 show the colour matrix that is the output from the Table Generator. On the horizontal axis is time and on the vertical axis there are the different fibre optic spotlights. Image 1.5 shows the basic behaviour of the different Robocolor fibres. Each different spline represents one of the Robocolor fibres and its colour shift (vertical axis) in time (horizontal axis). Image 1.6 shows a 3-dimensional landscape of all colour shifts in time. The 2.x images show the same process but with a different input bitmap. The bitmap shown in image 2.0 is a gradient sine pattern that results in a different characteristic of colour shifts. If image 1.5 is compared with 2.5 it is clear that the gradient sine pattern (2.5) generates a colour sequence that shows more different colours at any given time. And although image 1.4 may look more chaotic than 2.4 it results in greater similarity between the different Robocolor fibres. The resulting colour pattern can be scaled in intensity (colour dim) an length (shift speed) by the Pearl lighting computer. This scaling or interference is triggered by internal and external input and makes the experience of the colour environment react on both environment and visitors.
External interference Within the saltwaterpavilion a weather station receives the values of the water level and wind speed in the direct vicinity of the saltwaterpavilion. These data are used to calculate the emotive factor of the pavilion. The emotive factor stipulates the pulse frequency of the colour environment. If the emotive factor rises, the frequency increases. The formula of the emotive factor is: ef = (0.7
* (0.612 * wl + 1.79)) + (0.3 * (3.057 * ws + 3.6)) The wind speed and water level are measured in real-time and transmitted from a buoy out on the water of the Oosterschelde. A Maritime Board Unit in the saltwaterpavilion receives the data and sends it to the sensor computer. This computer calculates the emotive factor according to the above described formula and translates it to a midi signal. The signal is send to the Pearl lighting computer where it triggers the appropriate pulse frequency. The emotive factor is also used to trigger different sound sources. These sound sources are used as a base for the overall composition. The composition is generated with the program SuperCollider. This program is the only program available that is capable of real time sound synthesis. Internal interference Within the environment there are pre-programmed and user-driven interference's. The pre-programmed interference's are the tidal wave and the airbag which both are inside the building. The tidal wave floods the lower half of the saltwaterpavilion every few minutes. During the high tide the airbag is opened and the sunlight pours into the building. The overwhelming force of the sunlight takes control over the light environment for a short period. Only during this period it is possible to look out through the nose window of the pavilion. When the tidal wave starts to flow a signal is send to the sensor computer and triggers the Pearl lighting computer to shift all colours to bright white and to switch of any dimmer actions. The same signal is send to the composition computer to be used as input for the sound environment. The two user-driven interference's are the Sensor board and the VR interface. Both are elliptical surfboard-like panels that are integrated in the skin of the hydra. The Sensor board is pressure sensitive in two directions. By pressing the board towards the left the 121000 Watt flood lights on the left pole of the pavilion are activated. Pressing the right side results in 12.000 Watts of red light from the right pole. With the sensor board the visitor activates both poles alternately by sending signals to the Pearl lighting computer. The sound environment also receives data from the Sensor board. The different directions activate different sound samples that start travelling through the multi speaker system of the pavilion. The VR interface board is used to navigate through a multi level virtual reality environment. Six high resolution 1000 ANSI lumen LCD projectors project the virtual environment on all surfaces of the saltwaterpavilion. The colourful and lively VR projections are generated by two Silicon Graphics O2 computers. These projections contribute highly to the dynamism of the pavilion by projecting the flowing images on the building's surfaces. Overview The whole behavioural system is illustrated by flow chart 4.0. The left side of this image is the input side. Here you find the interfaces, receivers, sensors and other input devices. The input data is digested by a series of computers, converters and mixing tables in the saltwaterpavilion. The output is represented on the right side of the scheme by projectors, speakers and lights. project data project:
Saltwaterpavilion © Kas
Oosterhuis http://www.oosterhuis.nl/ http://www.archis.org/archis_art_e_1997/archis_art_9709_ENG.html |
