Chameleon skin: wrapping a dumb concrete and glass office block in stainless steel mesh is intended to turn it into a shining landmark.Digital service companies are seen as the panacea for stagnating economies. Beside the Saar river Saar River French Sarre River, France and Germany. A tributary of the Moselle River, it flows 153 mi (246 km) across northeastern France into Germany and enters the Moselle above Trier. The northern part of the valley is a wine-growing district. in Saarbrucken, an inner-city multimedia business centre has replaced former labour-intensive coal and steel industries. Kramm & Strigl's Expomedia Light-Cube is its public relations public relations, activities and policies used to create public interest in a person, idea, product, institution, or business establishment. By its nature, public relations is devoted to serving particular interests by presenting them to the public in the most centrepiece. Designed as a physical manifestation of the virtual world, it is in fact a conventional six-storey office block wrapped in a spectacular light show. The paradox of this project is that a static building is given the appearance of an ethereal ethereal /ethe·re·al/ (e-ther´e-il) 1. pertaining to, prepared with, containing, or resembling ether. 2. evanescent; delicate. e·the·re·al adj. 1. vision. Enveloping en·vel·op tr.v. en·vel·oped, en·vel·op·ing, en·vel·ops 1. To enclose or encase completely with or as if with a covering: "Accompanying the darkness, a stillness envelops the city" a standard concrete envelope is a 1500 sq m outer skin of fine stainless steel stainless steel: see steel. stainless steel Any of a family of alloy steels usually containing 10–30% chromium. The presence of chromium, together with low carbon content, gives remarkable resistance to corrosion and heat. mesh. At night this acts as a membrane for the projection of images: during the day, as a transparent veil revealing light effects from within the building. Sandwiched between the concrete building shell and mesh mantle is a grid of LED glass rods. These transport computer-generated, continually metamorphosing, rainbow-coloured fractal images on to the outer face. (An effect familiar to those who remember psychedelic psychedelic /psy·che·del·ic/ (si?ki-del´ik) 1. pertaining to or characterized by hallucinations, distortions of perception and awareness, and sometimes psychotic-like behavior. 2. a drug that produces such effects. light shows produced with low-tech slide projectors.) This camouflage of illumination is augmented by a small LED display screen set into one elevation which projects more recognizable entertainment and news images. In daylight the 4.5 mm thick steel mesh is a silver mirror reflecting climatic conditions. (Whether this will be a hazard to air transport in bright sunlight is as yet unknown.) The mesh construction is tensioned and made rigid with spacer bars to withstand storms and it also allows individual technical components between the two skins to be removed and replaced. Similar customized systems were devised for Hanover's Bertelsmann Expo pavilion and Berlin's Sony Centre. Architects Kramm & Strigl recognize that a media revolution is not necessarily an architectural one. Their building is a landmark structure attempting to mediate between old and new architectural technologies and theories, but the philosophies of Derrida, Baudrillard et al, do not conveniently translate into earthbound earth·bound also earth-bound adj. 1. Fastened in or to the soil: earthbound roots. 2. a. buildings. Essentially, this is a pleasing high-tech blanket thrown over a functional container. Internally, a light-filled atrium is enclosed on three sides by office floors for deskbound employees. Architecture, be it a caravan or a castle, can house virtual worlds but remains firmly rooted in the real one. Even computer workstations need shelter from the rain. |
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