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Swarmscape
Almost all of the world’s bigest cities are situated next to large water areas. Thinking of increasing population, decline of usable public space and larger and larger built infrastructure, an important question to be answered is what role can water areas play in our future dynamic cities? One possible answer is an intelligent, interactive and floating landscape – Swarmscape – which will make use of the water without obstructing its valuable area permanently. Swarmscape is a modular system, consisting of large and small modules. The first type provides additional floating landscape, while the latter ensures a quick crossing over the river. A general system follows real time data and informs the modules to move to the most crowded attraction points. Furthermore, Swarmscape is also an interactive landscape. Each module has it‘s own intelligence which is capable to react to different amounts of people. Interactivity is embedded in LED lighting and bending larger module corners. Modules‘ behaviour anticipates a unique and explorative landscape as well as provides guiding for pedestrians to cross the water when dealing with large number of people. Swarmscape is an attempt to implement soft pneumatic systems at an urban scale. We believe that this direction empowers architecture to become more flexible, organic, sustainable and fully reflects on accelerating city life. Initially designed to manage huge crowds of the future World Expo at a candidate city of Rotterdam in 2025, project‘s potential reaches beyond that. A tested and developed product could be easily shipped and implemented on any other major world city situated next to water areas. As future mobility is currently an important topic for discussion, Swarmscape addresses a solution to provide new infrastucture over the water without any roboust and large construction. Furthermore, it‘s a new urban space, new meeting point and attraction which enriches city‘s vibrant life in an information driven era.
Serban Bodea