Hasta La Ideas

Over the next months we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year’s Core77 Design Awards! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com

Designer: Phu Hoang Office & Rachely Rotem Studio
Location: New York City, New York, USA
Category: Interiors/Exhibition
Award: Winner

Exhale Pavilion

Exhale Pavilion, which covers a 25,000 SF beach site, literally shifts with the weather, producing an open and dynamic environment. The project created a public art venue for the Art Basel Miami Beach art fair. The site was temporarily transformed by seven miles of hanging ropes swaying in the wind.

We are fascinated with the possibilities that interactive architecture can bring to the built environment. We design novel relationships between architecture and the environment. For us, this is more than “sustainability”—it is about conceiving of the environment as an interactive experience. These two research focus of ours—interactivity and the environment—were synthesized together in the Exhale pavilion as the public interacted with the dynamically wind forces on the site.

The Exhale pavilion used two types of rope to create these interactive environments. Some ropes were reflective while others were phosphorescent; together they produced a canopy that shimmers and glows in the night. The reflective ropes shimmered as the night winds moved through them. When the wind would reach a particular speed, it would momentarily activate special ultraviolet lights, “charging” the glowing phosphorescent rope. Other, smaller wind speed sensors mounted at human height respond directly to users’ behavior. When someone blew on a sensor, it momentarily “charged” the nearby glowing ropes. Rather than relying on fixed relationships, we were staging possibilities for the public to experience the wind with the medium of ropes and light. We were giving form to the site’s wind effects while also creating new forms of public interaction with the environment.

Core77: How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?

We watched the live broadcast as it was happening. Since the jury was in Tokyo and we are both based in New York, the broadcast occurred at 10 pm local time. It was a really exciting moment to find out that we won—especially after the very high quality of work that was evident with the other competitors.

What’s the latest news or development with your project?

We just received an exciting piece of news. The Department of Environmental Resources Management in Florida has successfully lowered our concrete footings to the bottom of the ocean. Working with Creative Time (one of our clients), we had arranged to donate all of the materials used to build “Exhale”—this included the concrete footings, which will form an artificial reef off the coast of Florida. It is terrific that our project will have an “afterlife”—for the fish and scuba divers!

Project afterlife images courtesy of The Department of Environmental Resources Management of Florida

What was one of the most exciting experiences from your project?

We had designed the project to constantly change its form according to the site wind levels—but we never could guess how exactly it would appear. The unpredictability of its final appearance was very exciting to us. As we completed the construction, we were amazed by the effects that the wind had on the rope. At times, the ropes would move wildly and create entirely unexpected forms. At other times, the ropes would sway gently in the wind as if suspended in slow motion.

Read on for full details on the project and jury comments.

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