Interactive façade lighting
Published on: 14th of September 2011
Current city: London
On my way to the hotel I decided to make a detour to have a look at the new W Hotel in Leicester Square. This hotel was just recently built and it is located in a very well known and busy square. The new façade skin from Jason Bruges Studio puts lighting into a new perspective: it was designed to take pictures of its surroundings and turn them into a light show on the façade.
It is a very clever and complex scheme as eight cameras mounted on the hotel roof take pictures of the skyline and adjacent buildings every minute, night and day. This information is then stitched as panoramic shots which is compressed into a 2-minute film and recreated on the LED façade. Every day the light show is different as it is directly linked to the environmental and light changes of the surroundings. It is very interesting and since I'm very much interested into interactivity and new media I found it quite an amazing project.
The new M&M shop at the bottom of the building with such an intensive, playful and colourful light scheme tends to draw its attention, but next time you pass in Leicester Square don't forget to look up to the façade and indulge in this great light show!
What's your favourite interactive lighting display? Have a look at my itinerary and let me know if I should add it to my list of must-sees.
2 Comments
nice! hadn't seen it before!
my pick for Singapore: Clarke Quay, Iluma mall and AAMP
will keep reading ;)
The concept is great, I totally agree. I wonder what the experience for the guests in their rooms is: do you think they have a flood of light, constantly changing, entering their rooms at night?