KALEIDOLIGHT

(Interactive light display, shorlisted in Bombay Saphire competition, 2006, collaboration with Gerardo Fernández Espín)

Architects are used to working with the dimension of light and with glass as a medium that allows visual transparency. However, the kaleidolight explores the capacity of glass as a light-mediating element in virtue of its light conductivity. The kaleidolight proposal develops a concept of wall based on the accumulation of a simple iterative glass element that filters like a sieve the light entering a room and at the same time gives something back to the outside world in the form of a dynamic façade.

Each individual kaleidolight consists of a glass cylinder with an aluminium lid screwed on one of its ends (threaded). The whole component is inserted from the inside of the wall into a cylindrical hole in the wall and protrudes on the façade because it is longer than the thickness of the wall. The degree of insertion (and protrusion) can be manually adjusted, thus the amount of light that gets filtered-in is controllable and the atmosphere within the room can change dramatically.

Light travels from the outside along the glass cylinder through conductivity and bounces on the inner side of the aluminium lid which has a mirrored surface and is finally indirectly projected onto the inner side of the wall in the form of a hallo around the hole in the wall. In a homologous way, at night, the outer façade expresses the indoors inhabitation by spilling light through its protruding cylinders.