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The Ether

Velux International Competition proposal 
Description
The Han River cuts through the heart of Seoul, and it is the soul that creates the city's atmosphere. However, the relationship between the people and the Han River has drifted apart because of the river's pollution levels. Han River is located relatively downstream which means that all the chemicals and wastes are collected. This proposal aims to design a pavilion that cleans Han River. Usually, this process happens in a remote facility, but this project intends to make the process visibly and physically experienceable to the visitors. By doing this, visitors are constantly reminded of the problem at hand and at the same time, they will be able to experience a new type of architecture, an architecture without physical boundaries. The pavilion that we propose manipulates water harnessed directly from the Han River and light (both natural and artificial) to create a new experience with refracting lights at daytime and light barriers at night. During daytime, a pvc pipe whose section contains a prism refracts sun’s rays visualizing various spectrums of natural light. At night, light source from the ceiling projects architectural shapes and plans onto the volumetric vapor clouds giving a new form of architectural experience.
Software Used
SketchUp 2022, Vray 5, Photoshop CC
The Ether
 
Architecture has been a constant struggle of architects trying to curve physical matter to create space. This project uses non-physical materials (hence named "The Ether") such as water vapors and light expanding the boundaries of architecture. Images on the right is a photograph taken from our various tests on how light behaves when it meets a volumetric body showing possibilities of creating physical spaces using smoke machine and a projector or a high intensity LED screen. The goal of this project was to recreate this effect on an architectural scale.
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