This project is about a responsive facade controlled by Arduino Uno. The concept behind it is to create a building that can express different situations which take place inside or outside of it, forming “gestures” similar to facial expressions.

For the physical prototype, a flexible fabric has been chosen to represent the envelope of the building. Its deformation is being triggered by a rotating mechanism right behind it, made of laser cut circular pieces and gears hooked up to a metallic axis. The revolution of the axes is generated by stepper motors and is activated by 6 different LDR sensors which have been placed along the textile. The optimum configurations have been generated by Galapagos to have the facade moving towards the light source.

A point which represented the light source is introduced to grasshopper to calculate the distance to the closest point of every circle. The strategy was to create different curvatures reacting to the light source, widening the space between the interior of the building and the moving facade to diffuse the light.

The genomes were the degrees of the rotation of the axes whereas the fitness criterion was to have the shortest distance with the light source in order to have the facade expanded outwards.

Screenshot from VIDEO

Inspired by data visualization and looking at information as art, this is an experiment to explore the basics of graphically rhythmic visuals using sound as an input and basic geometric shapes to build the visual environment.

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Software: Processing

Library: Minim

Method: FFT / Frequency Spectrum

Song: Game of Love (remix by Nicolas Jaar Album DaftSide) original song by Daft Punk

Looking into songs as data, this sketch shows how using the MINIM library from processing can analyze audio to isolate specific frequencies within a spectrum. Then add this properties to specific shapes and create responsive visuals. Using the method described by DDF on this link – http://code.compartmental.net/2007/03/21/fft-averages – to group the frequency bands in the spectrum into 9 bands, where each band represents a range in hertz. This allowed  control 9 ellipse shapes to change color or size, or show a grid of points only when the amplitude (loudness) of a range is between two specified values.

Frequencies divided in 9 bands / 9 shapes to create the graphic representation.