The Digital Water Pavilion
An EXPO 2008 Pavillion Project
Justin Lee collaborated with MIT SENSEable City Laboratory during the open competition phase of this project and continued to serve as the design-construction advisor until its completion.
“Water” was the theme of the Expo Zaragoza 2008. The project investigated using water as a building material to create a dynamic and socially interactive facades for the open-air pavilion. It featured a floating canopy with falling curtains of digitally controlled water droplets at its edges - curtains that not only could be programmed to display images but could also sense an approaching person and automatically part to let it through. This responsiveness provocatively subverted the fundamental architectural conception of an opening as something that, like a door, is found only at a fixed location. It suggests the exciting possibility of an open-air, precisely controlled, interactive water installation deployed at an urban scale.
About
Client: Private
Location: EXPO Zaragoza, Spain
Year Completed: 2008
Collaboration: MIT SENSEable City Laboratory
Image Credits: Carlos Muntadas, Ramak Fazel