Saturday, September 13, 2008

Power Up

Here comes an additional text with images to the video posted under the "Collection" post earlier this month;



Visiondivision got the comission to give 8 power plants in gothenburg a new identity.We gave them a collection of projects, ranging from a small scale to pharaoic wonders.
The biggest part of the commissions was to renovate one of the city’s major power plants; Sävenäs. The plant is today a collage of different non good looking building parts. Our sketches vary from low-cost solutions with a big effect, to a more iconic brave architecture.


The first sketch was to paint the whole thing blue, It would merge the different building parts into one major complex mass. The blue paint also fades from matt at the lower parts of the building to glossy in its highest parts.


At night different projections forms a moving story on how the power plant is functioning, following the story the viewer will see how wood is turned into energy and then see the waste products going up the chimney as water vapour.


To manifest that the smoke is actually just water, we propose to project dolphins and other sea animals in it. Projecting in the smoke also gives a big visual effect and can be seen from miles around.


We also had to do a more brave proposal, after all we are visiondivision. So we made a true iconic wonder; a digital volcano. The construction is rather simple; a net is draped over the whole building with LED-light, starting at the 100 m high chimney. The LED-device is also a solar cell, making the system energy-independent. Each one of the devices can change color and therefor can the volcano take any visual expression.


The power plant has a great exposure potential due to its strategic location next to the highway and the railway leading in and out of Gothenburg.Advertisment, concerts or maybe digital art? The options are endless and the company will have a media icon unseened of in this part of the world.

Sävenäs power plant has many employees that now will experience the net as a big roofwith a ever-changing repertoire of visual delights.


Plan: volcano net

The second part of the commission was to renovate seven smaller power plants in the suburbs of Gothenburg. Visiondivision made a list of improvements that would be cheap, quick and function separately from each other. The tree major design concepts were to clean up the surrounding areas of the plants, design more visible signs and to surprise visitors by adding something new to the context.


To add a new and more positive design to the plants we decided to upgrade the building parts with the most negative associations; the surrounding fences. By filling the fences with Plexiglass we created a thematic image that can be seen from a distance.Parts of the image could also be projected at the facades by putting headlamps in front of them.


Drawing : Plexiglass filled fence

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