Client: SHIFTboston and Boston Children's Museum

Type: Competition (Waterfront Park Pavilion)

Size / Date: 2,500 square feet / 2011

Awards: Commendation, 2013 WAN 21 for 21 Award
1st Place, SHIFTboston Barge 2011 Competition



“Lighter than Air” was the winning entry in the SHIFTboston BARGE 2011 competition. The goal of the competition was to create an interactive architectural environment on a barge in Boston's Fort Point Channel. “Lighter Than Air" will temporarily transform the barge into a public space, giving the floating vessel a new visual presence in the channel. The project uses principles of camouflage to produce a new atmospheric phenomenon, make the familiar seem strange—or the unfamiliar seem familiar. Camouflage becomes a design strategy for reformulating urban identities, and not simply a method of obscuring recognizable form.

Lighter than Air for SHIFTboston Barge 2011 Competition from MODU on Vimeo.


“Lighter than Air” will use a three-dimensional camouflage net held up by helium-filled weather balloons to create a weather system that floats above the barge. The shape and orientation of the system will shift continuously in response to changes in the wind and public activity. The unpredictability of its form will generate a temporary, dynamic, and responsive public space, providing different experiences upon each visit.


External Links:
Boston: the reinvention of the Fort Point/Seaport district (The Guardian)
'Fitness Parks' Catch On in Cities (USA Today)
Boston’s Former Industrial Mecca: Fort Point Channel Landmark District (Boston.com)

MODU is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites





Visitors will be invited to use an outdoor gym, with bicycles that generate “pedal power” that transforms liquid water into water vapor mist. As the water vapor condenses on the cool surfaces of the camouflage nets, the three-dimensional surface of the camouflage net will temporarily retain the resulting liquid. This liquid will mingle with the harbor breeze to create cool microclimate zones that invite the public to interact with weather as an ephemeral form of architectural space.



Press:
Boston Globe (5 May 2011)
The Architect’s Newspaper, (20 April 2011)
Domus, Online (6 April 2011)

Project Team: Rachely Rotem, Phu Hoang, Amanda Morgan

Credits: Transsolar (Climate Engineer), Arup (Structural)