Light Design Plaza (Zhongyang Huang)
Research Questions:
How to combine tactile experience with light and shadow, support care in public space?
How to design a community space with diverse activities to solve the problem of loneliness in the elderly and improve community cohesion?
Abstract
The transformation of light and shadow is an important element in the composition of landscape space. The rational use of light and shadow can effectively optimize the shaping of the space situation. Through the design of the pattern, the virtual reality, the apparent and hidden, and the movement and stillness of the light and shadow are displayed, creating a different space environment and enhancing the artistic sense for the landscape space. In the community space in the center of the plaza, a dynamic sense of space is created, which is conducive to streams, leaf shadows, etc. to give a sense of flow and freedom. At the same time, the entire region is focused on building urban care infrastructure. We target low-income communities with high densities of seniors living alone, people with disabilities, or non-caring family members. Build a diverse community space and increase community activities It is feasible to build a humanistic community, so that the elderly will no longer feel lonely, participate in different types of activities to obtain happiness, and have a dedicated person responsible for providing care services. Our purpose is to protect those most vulnerable who should be able to take care of themselves, care for others and form a larger overall community.
The light and shadow design is divided into two parts. The first part uses natural elements collected by nature (streams and rocks, plant shadows, etc.) Light and shadow effects. The second part is for the children’s leisure area, the bundles care area, which uses the temperature sensor to control the shading area. People can scan the QR code to get real-time weather conditions and use a Mobile phone App to control the shading area of the roof. By limiting the amount of light coming in, the sun prevents the bunches from overheating, yet still a gentle breeze passes through. During summertime, people want more shady areas as temperature rise; During wintertime, people want more open area to get sunlight when temperature drop. People can also choose the shape of light and shadow they like. At the same time, the Arduino sensor for light is placed on the ground to measure the brightness and illumination level of sunlight in real time, allowing people to further feel the changes of the surrounding environment in real time through the app.
Background Theory
- “Contemporary architecture, thus, has a role to play in providing people with architectural places that make them feel the presence of nature. When it does this, architecture transforms nature through abstraction, changing its meaning.” - Tadao Ando
During the article I think architecture should coexist in harmony. The architectural feature is to allow future living patterns to coexist with ancient traditional customs by capturing traditional cultural characteristics, and climatic and natural characteristics.
- “The inhabitants of cities can be considered possible agents of regulation and actuation: once the datasets generated through different sensing mechanisms are spatially and temporally attached to entities and phenomena in a physical terrain, visualization of urban data can be cross-referenced with the geographical terrain to allow revelation of urban dynamics in real time, thus democratizing access to helpful urban information that offers people more control over their environment by ‘allowing them to make decisions that are more informed about their surroundings, reducing the inefficiencies of present day urban systems’ (Calabrese et al., 2011).” – MIT SENDEable Cities Lab
During the article, I think when people want to know the information about site’s light, temperature, they can get the real-time data quickly by using APP. Urban data can be connected to constituent elements, and public spaces turn these spaces into interactive fields.
- “The form of these details (sounds, smells, textures etc) provides a clue as to how our environment establish relationships with us, as ‘users’ of those spaces, and thus affect our perceptions.” – Vitello, Willcocks
During the article, I think detail design in public community center is important. Detail texture of steam, shadow of leaves, silhouette of mountains will let people feel immersive, they will stay in the valley cover of big forest, hear river sounds surrounding, smell the field flow and grass smells.
Contextualization
- In the design of the Louvre in Abu Dhabi, Jean Nouvel designed the interior lighting into a unique appearance by applying the grille skin to filter the natural light through different methods. The sunlight penetrates 8 superimposed layers, presenting a diffuse and pictorial effect, dappled, like palm trees in an oasis in the UAE, layer upon layer and complement each other.
- Teshima Art Museum
Ryue Nishizawa created two patio openings to leave a connection between the interior and exterior of the building, and also endow the Teshima Art Museum with a flowing spirituality. Sitting in the museum, you can not only feel Rei Naito up close. The Zen meaning of the “mother-shaped” water droplets can also be felt by the light, temperature and air introduced by Ryue Nishizawa from the outside. There is a rope around the patio, which indicates the existence of the wind, through the patio, you can see the green leaves of the treetops and the birds in the sky
Data Collection
Analysis
When the facility includes operating temperature, light sensor, QR code, and the software for making mobile phone visualization temperature is completed and put into use, by checking the number of app views, you can clearly observe how many people use the facility to adjust the light effect and obtain the latest weather and temperature conditions. At the same time, set up motion sensors placed in the community center and children playground area of the plaza to detect people’s happiness index; install people flow detection sensors on both sides of the square, use laser technology to detect when a person moves through.
Compare the number of people using the awning with the total number of people entering and leaving the plaza to get the activity of people using the awning.
Conclusion
A dynamic and static community space combining light and shadow is created in the public space: a central diversified community activity center, children’s entertainment with awnings, and the bundles area. By introducing the texture of the natural valley into the material design of the community center plaza, it not only provides people with a way to feel the nature, but also enjoys the light and shadow changes brought by nature. Enabling the entire plaza to accommodate groups of different ages, especially the elderly, improves community cohesion.
Reference
Data Dimensions: Accessing urban Data and Making it Accessible, by MIT SENDEable Cities Lab
Towards New Horizons in Architecture, by Tadao Ando
The Difference is in the Detail, by Vitello, Willcocks