“Urban Future” at Design Miami 2011 / BIG + Kollision + Schmidhuber & Partner

BIG + Kollision + Schmidhuber & Partner team up to bring BIG’s vision of future urban mobility to life for AUDI at Design Miami/ 2011, running from November 30th through December 4th adjacent to Art Basel Miami Beach. BIG originally presented the concept as an entry for the 2010 AUDI Urban Future Award introducing a future city paved with a digital surface that liberates the streets from existing boundaries and allows for a new flexibility of public use. More images and project description after the break.

The 190 m2 three-dimensional LED installation provides a glimpse of the future city where the public space is shared between pedestrians and driverless cars. The entire surface would be infused with a continuous flow of information allowing for real-time interaction between vehicles and their environment. Mounted above the Design Miami installation, 3D cameras track the movement of passers-by processing the data into a generative artwork that feeds back into the LED panels.

“Our pavilion for AUDI renders visible the invisible forces that flow through our city – the driverless car is relying on sophisticated sensory and computational technology that constantly observes and calculates the dynamic space that the living city constitutes. The result is an architecture of movement whose forms have not been predetermined by the architect but are constantly being recomposed by the people populating the pavilion.” Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Partner, BIG.

The installation sets the stage for Audi’s showcar, Audi A2 concept, which has its U.S debut at the design fair and is dedicated to future urban mobility, capable of communicating with its environment. The exhibition car continuously emits arrows showing its driving path, navigating real-time between visitors at the stand.

“We have created 190 m2 of future public space around the concept car, visualizing how pedestrians and cars interact digitally. Pedestrians are creating digital safe zones and the movement of the car is simulated, navigating between people. We believe that infusing the surface of the city with information technology will create a new kind of true shared space – a condition similar to a public square. In a single day, the function of the street may alternate multiple times between entirely pedestrian, vehicular, or even recreational functions. ” Andreas Klok Pedersen, Partner-in-Charge, BIG.

Architects: BIG
Location: Miami, Florida, United States
Collaborators: Kollision Aarhus, Schmidhuber + Partner
Partners in Charge: Bjarke Ingels, Andreas Klok Pedersen
Project Leader: Martin Voelkle
Team: Daniel Kidd, Chris Malcolm, David Tao, Laura Youf, Lucian Racovitan
Client: AUDI AG
Size: 190 m2