Interiors and Sources

it a day. The next level up, then, was to explore different reflective materials, like the 3M film that you’d use for traffic signs or street markings. The idea was to have a passive pattern that still gets activated by the passing traffic.

We experimented. We went and did the full-scale mock ups and around that time I received a phone call from a gentleman from E Ink and he said, "We like your work; we like your experimental approach. We are the makers of E Ink material and we’ve done a couple of million Kindle screens.

Now we’re able to print out the same material a mile long, but we don’t know what to do with it." And this is where things fell into place. We said, "We just won an art commission to do a big façade; we should investigate whether your dynamic material is actually applicable to an outside installation."

i+s: What were some of the challenges in applying the e-reader technology to such a large exterior?

NH: There were plenty of challenges that we had to overcome collectively and it only was possible because the engineers were willing to be very creative. Also, we had to find a common language and common understanding between art, design, and engineering and that worked extremely well with the E Ink team.

From the technology side, I think it’s fair to say this was a massive undertaking on behalf of E Ink to get the material ready for an exterior application.

They needed to make it absolutely resistant to the elements. You also have to generate enough photovoltaic energy to actually run these tiles and at the same time you have to be able to store it in a way that can support thousands and thousands of cycles of charge and discharge. You have to generate a wireless network that can address each of the 2, 100 tiles individually—it needs to know every tile by name. You have to find an attachment method of the tiles to the façade that is robust enough that they don’t start slipping off but still can be removed without [damage].

You have to devise a system on how to map the geometry of the tiles onto the geometry of the façade, which is quite complex.

i+s: What is your hope for this project?

NH: My hope would be—and also E Ink’s hope— that our DAZZLE art piece is inspiring other architects, other corporations, to embrace a different approach to media and their environment.

It’s not too much of a stretch to say that this will help revolutionize how we use media on an urban scale and architectural scale.

BELOW LEFT TO RIGHT The building's geometric camouflage pattern was inspired by Norman Wilkinson's "razzle dazzle" technique used to alter the perception of naval ships to the enemy during WWI.