Two young Italian architects (with MIT) have created the first building in Zaragoza walled fluid changed depending on the requirement. And TIME has already proclaimed the best invention of the year
A building d'acqua. Or rather, with walls made of water. Waterfalls “magic” programmed by a computer that, are articulated in writings and drawings. And if you approach, automatically opens a gap, letting you go without getting wet. All’interno, The tourist office box glass and benches for resting in the shade, cool, with splashing water. Then, when the building does not need, the flow stops and the roof falls, reduced to a platform on the pavement: only the box of glass remains.
E’ The digital water pavilion, which last year, when he was still in the planning stage, TIME proclaimed Best invention of 2007 and now, finally realized, debuted at the entrance of the Expo Zaragoza 2008.
E’ the first time that the water enters the digital history of architecture as a building material, instead of brick and concrete , explains Carlo Ratti, Architecture and urban planning professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston: his studio in Turin ( carlorattiassociati – Walter Nicolino & Carlo Ratti), signed with the Spanish Pavilion at MIT.
La note of the time technology was, was patented in America twenty years ago, but then had a limited use. Apply it offers new possibilities for urban spaces, because it makes the buildings more fluid, adaptable to different needs interactive.
Rats continues “We have already received several requests from the Gulf states and the Las Vegas: no coincidence that places where water is scarce and is a valuable asset. A Kwait City, eg, want to build a skyscraper hotel lobby open to the outside four stories high and covered with a curtain of water. We have a whole counter-façade of water. In fact an entire building: a tower evanescent, smaterializzata. And where necessary to close the rooms with glass, because there is air conditioning, you can create a double skin, more water glass.
But what is the digital water? A system consisting of thousands of taps arranged side by side on a pipe along the roof of the building controlled by a computer posono be opened and closed quickly.
The quick check of these nozzles creates full and empty spaces in the fall of water that form in writing and drawings. A bit like a jet printer ink on large-scale. Along the roof of the building there are some other sensors, that the approach of someone, break the curtain of water and break through: such as sliding glass doors that open automatically. L’acqua, that in the pavilion in Zaragoza is pumped at a rate of two cubic meters per second, is obviously recycled: you lose only one that evaporates. And the roof is not fixed, but rises and falls on twelve pistons that disappear underground, to give more fluidity to the building. What should be the most dynamic and interactive: these days is to install a device that will give citizens the opportunity to decide on the Internet or text message as to bring the decorations on the water curtain. So anyone feel a little door’ architect.
When you close the Expo, the pavilion will become a center of information on future changes in Zaragoza. Because the city is serious about. Having already redone the look at the big fair (a new bridge by Zaha Hadid is a real thrill) has also initiated the so-called Digital Mile: one mile and a half of technological pole, to build in the coming years in the current area of the station will be moved a little’ The more.
But, the pavilion, how to use the potential of digital architecture of the water? E’ best suited to public spaces and private homes. Yet it also works well in terraces, courtyards and loggias. It may even become a paradise for artists, with thousands of taps available, can create images, messages…. mounting microphones and sound on the jets of water.
A little’ less than a century ago, wrote Le Corbusier “civilization of machines is looking for his architectural expression”. Now try their language is the digital civilization arcitettura, that in the last twenty years has transformed our lives.
From the Friday of the Republic
