Interactive Spaces is a collaboration project where we are designing experiences in public spaces, and imagining new ways emerging technology can subvert or enhance existing interactions. The project requires research in order to understand the space itself: the unique design challenges it presents, its context within a larger architectural space or spaces, its intended and actual audience, and its intended and actual use.
For the first project we selected Williamsburg New York as a location.The Williamsburg Bridge is a busy bridge in New York that moves people between Manhattan and Brooklyn. It has all kinds of traffic, including trucks, cars, subway trains, bikers and pedestrians. The bridge has its own personality that most people do not notice.
Please see the video of the selected part of the bridge below:
- The Space -
Our project is a mechanical art installation that represents the personality of the Williamsburg Bridge. It is an interactive wall that shows the Williamsburg Bridge as a living thing and reflects its feelings and movements based on its noise levels and the people and forms of transportation that use it every day.
- The Mechanism -
Rectilinear into rectilinear motion. When the rods, A and B, are brought together, the rods, C and D, are thrust further apart, and vice versa. The mechanism that we are using consists of a series of gears that can move vertically as well as horizontally. Using this mechanism, we replicated the four arms to create a grid of square shapes.
- Experimental Prototype -
The gears are constructed to move through external stimuli. The squares can change their position according to the movements and noise levels on the bridge. When the bridge is quiet with little movement, the squares remain in basically the same position. When the bridge has heavy movements and the noise is bigger and louder, the squares stretch and move vertically and horizontally.The forms inside of each of the squares will change their shape as well.
Why?
Our goal is to highlight the Williamsburg Bridge as a very important part of the city and showcase the lifeline of this bridge in a meaningful way. The Williamsburg Bridge is a suspension bridge in New York City across the East River connecting the Lower East Side of Manhattan at Delancey Street with the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg at Broadway near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.