Can your building speak for its city?

With the rise of social media and other easy ways to communicate your whereabouts, moods or thoughts — buildings are becoming a canvas on which a population can paint their collective information.

The Emotional Cities, a 4-month light installation project, is doing just that. City dwellers can log in their current moods and the building displays certain colors on its façade to reflect those moods.

So, why can’t buildings talk back? Why stop the conversation there?

IMPACTING A CULTURE

Once buildings get better at absorbing and translating information, they will eventually be able to make some sense of it (going beyond simply displaying an “averaged” color on its façade).

In the meantime, let’s enjoy the process of seeing ourselves “reflected” at these larger scales, and in these creative ways. Perhaps we’ll learn something new about ourselves, where we live and how we relate to one another.

Yet again, architecture can impact a culture.

Here’s the first baby-step.

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman