Architects GilBartolome ADW won the first prize in the competition Smart Future Minds Award with the project Lighting Device which aimed at anticipating technological and environmental aspects for the future of the city. Jurors selected this project for its viability, its vision for the future and the exclusive use of renewable energies and its potential as a social activator in the urban realm.
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The Project Lighting Device has several aims: a tool for social enhancement of a public space and a device to obtain energy at the same time that it expresses the culture of sustainability and renewable energies. It is a method of transforming wind power into electrical energy to activate the social life of the square.
The project gives service and celebrates and enlightens the diverse situations that are anticipated in the square. In this sense, the citizens become active participants and creators of the public space that allows them to organize situations such as: improvise a jam session, organize a theatrical representation, represent a performance, have lunch, celebrate a puppets show, make a PowerPoint presentation in a public screen, play in a soft area or sit and wait comfortably. A series of tables that hang down from a network of stainless steel cables above the public space provide the props for activation. They are connected to a wind responsive device and the batteries to provide electric supply to speakers, projection screens, music instruments or any other electric equipment required.
The event created by the Project Lighting Device is designed to inform visitors of energy usage and transference. Participants will be able to witness the light vary in brightness with the intensity of the wind. This device would be the first major application in the world of a new system of capturing the energy of the wind called Windbelt.
This device consists of a series of frames that support Windbelt panels. Each panel is connected to a battery which gives supply to a lighting device of 25W linear fluorescent lights, an audiovisual system, a system to recharge electric cars and miscellaneous equipment that supports different activities on the site. The low energy fluorescent lights are suspended from the steel cable network and are protected with an anti-vandalism case. The color of the light of each fluorescent lamp will vary according to its relative position to the system of Marguerite Daisies, creating an abstract relationship between light, color and smell. The Windbelt™ technology is based on a tensioned membrane undergoing a flutter oscillation to pull energy from the wind. This relies on an aerodynamic phenomenon known as aero elastic flutter. Each panel has a series of membranes that oscillate with the power of the wind and transform the energy of the wind into electric current.
The future use and adaptations of such device promise to engage citizens in a more dynamic way, asking for their active participation in public squares and providing a means to do it with renewable energy.
