A giant "digital cloud" that would
"float" above
The construction would include 120m- (400ft-) tall mesh
towers and a series of interconnected plastic bubbles that can be used to
display images and data.
The Cloud, as it is known, would also be used an
observation deck and park.
The unconventional structure was originally envisaged
as a centre piece of the city's Olympic village.
The building draws inspiration from the work of Tomas
Saraceno
Its designers plan to raise the funds to build it by
asking for micro-donations from millions of people.
"It's really about people coming together to raise
the Cloud," Carlo Ratti, one of the architects behind the design from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) told BBC News.
"We can build our Cloud with £5m or £50m. The
flexibility of the structural system will allow us to tune the size of the
Cloud to the level of funding that is reached."
The size of the structure will evolve depending on the
number of contributions, he said.
Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and
design at the
'Data
streams'
The Cloud was shortlisted in a competition set-up by
London Mayor Boris Johnson.
The Mayor has committed to build a tourist attraction
in the Olympic Park "with a legacy for the east end [of
Other finalists are thought to include the former
Turner prize winner Anish Kapoor and Antony Gormley, the designer of the Angel
of the North.
The Mayor is still in the "process of
deciding" which design will be commissioned, according to a spokesperson.
However, the team, which also includes the writer Umberto
Eco and engineers from Arup, has decided to push ahead and publish details of
its design.
The structure draws on work by artist Tomas Saraceno, a
German-based designer who has previously shown off huge inflatable sculptures.
It is envisaged that the spheres would be made of a
plastic known as Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE), the material used to
build the Beijing Aquatic Centre.
The different spheres would act as structural elements,
habitable spaces, decoration and LCD screens on which data could be projected.
"We could provide a custom feed of…searches made
by Londoners during the Olympics to give a real time 'barometer' of the city's
interests and mood," said Google, one of the supporters of the project,
which has also offered to provide the information feeds.
The team also envisage projecting weather information,
spectator numbers, race results or even images of the Olympic Torch on to the
building.
Ramps, stairs and lifts would carry people to the top
of the structure to look out over the city.
'Zero power'
The inflatable elements of the building would sit on
top slender, lightweight towers, stabilised by a net of metal cables.
Damping technology, similar to that used in Japanese
skyscrapers to resist earthquakes, would prevent the towers being buffeted by
the wind.
The
"Many tall towers have preceded this, but our
achievement is the high degree of transparency, the minimal use of material and
the vast volume created by the spheres," said professor Joerg Schleich,
the structural engineer behind the towers.
Professor Schleich was responsible for the Olympic
Stadium in
The structure would also be used to harvest all the
energy it produces according to Professor Ratti.
"It would be a zero power cloud," he said.
As well as solar cells on the ground and inside some of
the spheres, the lifts would use regenerative braking, similar to that in some
hybrid cars.
That way, the designers say, potential energy from
visitors to the top of the tower can be harnessed into useful electricity.
"It will be a monument to crowd-sourcing,"
said Professor Ratti.
http://www.physorg.com/news177317286.html
Technology reporter, BBC News