Team Members:
The Living Architecture Lab at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (Directors David Benjamin and Soo-in Yang) and Natalie Jeremijenko, Environmental Health Clinic at New York University
Network of floating tubes at Pier 35 in the East River.
Amphibious Architecture submerges ubiquitous computing into the water—that 90% of the Earth’s inhabitable volume that envelops New York City but remains under-explored and under-engaged. Two networks of floating interactive tubes, installed at sites in the East River and the Bronx River, house a range of sensors below water and an array of lights above water. The sensors monitor water quality, presence of fish, and human interest in the river ecosystem. The lights respond to the sensors and create feedback loops between humans, fish, and their shared environment. An SMS interface allows citizens to text-message the fish, to receive real-time information about the river, and to contribute to a display of collective interest in the environment.
Instead of treating the rivers with a “do-not-disturb” approach, the project encourages curiosity and engagement. Instead of treating the water as a reflective surface to mirror our own image and our own architecture, the project establishes a two-way interface between environments of land and water. In two different neighborhoods of New York, the installation creates a dynamic and captivating layer of light above the surface of the river. It makes visible the invisible, mapping a new ecology of people, marine life, buildings, and public space and sparking public interest and discussion.
Text the rivers now by sending “EastRiver” or “BronxRiver” to 41411. See also amphibiousarchitecture.net.
Texting the fish.
Prototype of integrated components, with sensors (input) on the left and lighting (output) on the right.
Calibrating the lighting.
Network of microcontrollers.
Toward the Sentient City: Amphibious Architecture from Urban Omnibus on Vimeo.
Additional team members:
Jonathan Laventhol
Vernon McDermott
Kevin Wei
Deborah Richards
Chris Woebken
Zenon Tech-Czarny
Abha Kataria
Amelia Black
Cathy Jones
Nicole Dooskin
Terri Bahr
Jack Powers
Mark Bain
In-Kind Contributions:
J.A. McDermott Light Corp.
SHoP Architects
New York City Economic
Development Corporation
Bronx River Art Center
8 Trackbacks
[...] aquatic beacons that allow you to talk to fish in the bottom of the city’s waterspace. The Amphibious Architecture team immersed several SMS addressable electronic sensors in the bottom of the East River and The [...]
[...] last weekend – Fish ‘n microChips, with Natalie Jeremijenko. We are at the site of the Amphibious Architecture project (a commissioned work for Toward the Sentient City) and “a collaborative project with [...]
[...] Noch bis zum 7. November kann man eine SMS „an Fische“ im East River in New York verschicken. Postwendend bekäme man eine Antwort mit lokalen Sensordaten. Was da an eine unschuldige Travesite des Turingtests erinnert, ist ein öko-ästhetisches Kunstprojekt: Instead of treating the water as a reflective surface to mirror our own image and our own architecture, the project establishes a two-way interface between environments of land and water. (Mehr hier) [...]
[...] Amphibious Architecture is by The Living Architecture Lab at Columbia Uni (formerly The Living) and Natalie Jeremijenko of NYU and elsewhere. It’s a rather beautiful piece of work, comprising two interactive networks of floating tubes, connecting the Bronx River and the East River. The tubes are both sensors and actuators, the latter in the form of LEDs, the former measuring water quality, presence of fish and so on. [...]
[...] was a piece in Amphibious Architecture, where sets of data collecting tubes are set up and then connected to an SMS gateway so that people [...]
[...] Amphibious Architecture – “submerges ubiquitous computing into the water—that 90% of the Earth’s inhabitable volume that envelops New York City but remains under-explored and under-engaged.” [...]
[...] Amphibious Architecture – “submerges ubiquitous computing into the water—that 90% of the Earth’s inhabitable volume that envelops New York City but remains under-explored and under-engaged.” [...]
[...] |11| Toward the Sentient City [...]