Urban sky

Urban sky Idea Our idea on helping cities become more vivid and favorable to self-expression is a sky dome-shaped cabin providing fun, art, and relaxed atmosphere to tired citizens of all ages thanks to dozens of moveable solar-powered mini-lamps and a bit of a navy dye. We believe city dwellers are lacking unclosed spaces they could clean their head in. Staying in public means facing crowds, noise and atmospheric phenomena that many people, including people with disabilities can’t bear. Therefore, our project forms a translucent border between them and their surroundings allowing them to admire the world from a cozy beautiful space they can interact with by creating and leaving behind patterns of lights. One can also gather the lamps centrically and under it’s brightness either work, study or indulge themselves in a novel or team games. The isolation and anxiety many have been struggling with lately caused a lot of people to not be able to express themselves openly outside their homes and social media. Our project aims to have people casually shape the non-private space they stay in and take notice of each other’s individuality and common traits both, while exploiting therapeutic effect of warm, swaying lights. We thought of light as of a source of self-expression exploring its mood-influencing impact. There are lots of people who dislike exposure to dazzling sunlight, in fact , due to the progressing climate change we all need to seek for public/semipublic shading structures not only meant to hide from the sun, but to provide a comfortable meeting space not entirely closed to the landscape. Based on these conclusions is the decision to have the dome shaded in the daytime, interacting with the amount of sunlight received. In the night it clears to let view at the stars.

Location We suggest the cabin to be placed above metro stations or on the rooftops of public buildings, where it could serve both as a peaceful semi-private waiting lounge and an inviting spot for group outings in the city centre.

How does it work? Construction scheme is based on a two-layered glass dome. The glass keeps in between a nonfreezing, light-reactive liquid, based on glycerol, water and properties-improving additives, turning dark blue in dazzling sunlight thanks to the UV sensitive photochromic dye.Inside, we let in a few dozens of small independent floating lamps, each running on the sunlight energy they charged during daytime by floating on the thick liquid’s surface.From the inside one can pull the lamps to the inner glass layer using handy magnets, as each of the light sources already have one built in its base and a lot of matching ones would be stored stuck to the internal metal profiles.That way one can create various patterns on the dome’s surface, visible as well from the inside, as from the outside, while being enclosed in a semi-private space not only they can admire, but only they can shape and enter.