Appreciates all types of design ideas.
Good form & function should always work hand in hand but at times designs needs to be push through all types of boundaries.
There is no standing still for design,only moving forward.
While multi-touch interactive displays offer a range of possibilities, they can be no larger than the average
user’s arm span. This is why human-computer interaction professor Patrick Baudisch and his team have
developed a multi-touch floor display. Because of the size limitations with hand controlled interactive
surfaces, only a few dozen onscreen objects can be dealt with at one time.
Baudisch wants to increase the possibilities with by integrating high-resolution multi-touch into back-projected floors. The floor concept can sense pressure and even identify users based on the soles of their shoes. The floor can ignore inactive users, focusing on known users who can use their foot to interact with very high precision. the floor is so precise users can type on a qwerty keyboard using their foot.
Green Lighthouse, Denmark’s first CO2 neutral public building, demonstrates that sustainable design is not a question of stuffing the building with brazen, expensive high-tech gadgets, but that it starts with good old fashioned common sense. In fact, 75% of the reduction of the energy consumption is the direct consequence of architectural design.
The building is going to serve as a showcase for sustainable building at the UN’s Climate Conference here in Copenhagen in December later this year. Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation, Helge Sander states; “Everyone who has had a share in the Green Lighthouse project has every reason to be proud.
It is a stylish, exemplary, climate-friendly construction, which will help focus the attention on Danish know-how during the forthcoming climate summit. At the same time, the building can serve as inspiration to other universities and builders, while also contributing to the construction industry’s knowledge base of sustainable building solutions”.
The parties involved in the project are the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, the University of Copenhagen, the City of Copenhagen and the window producers VELUX and VELFAC.
To achieve carbon neutrality, many green design features were incorporated to reduce energy use and provide a holistic and healthy indoor environment for students and faculty. The building itself was oriented to maximize its solar resources, while windows and doors are recessed and covered with automatic solar shades to minimize direct solar heat gain inside the building. Plentiful daylight and natural ventilation are provided by means of the carefully placed VELUX skylights, Velfac windows and the generous atrium.
Finally, sensibly integrated state-of-the-art technology has been applied: heat recovery systems, photovoltaic panels, solar heating, LED lighting, phase change materials, geothermal heat are just some of the technologies that are seamlessly integrated into the building.
Architect: Christensen & Co Arkitekter Client: Danish University and Property Agency Users: Faculty of Science (30 staff / 50 daily users) Area: 950 m² (site 3000m²) Project: May 2008 Construction: October 2008 Completion: November 2009 Collaborators: Hellerup Byg (contractors) Cowi (engineering) CCO staff MC, MC, TN, MS, TB, AM Misc Partners behind project: Danish University and Property Agency, Copenhagen
