Clouds | Paisajes Emergentes

Reading that great blog that pruned is, we found out this utopic [Utopic? Not sure, if it is constructed as planned] and really interesting project called Clouds by the young Colombian studio Paisajes Emergentes. Paisajes Emergentes is an architecture and landscape studio formed by Sebastian Mejia, Edgar Mazo and Luis Callejas and are based in Medellin.

After reading Alexander Trevi’s post, we decided to get in touch with the Colombian studio, and they sent us the design statement with their ideas about the Clouds project. We can read at their e-mail:

The Ituango Hydroelectric plant is going to be finished in about 15 years. The towns that surround the area are not going to be flooded, but their economy will suffer some big changes. We’re concerned about this and want to give the best response possible to the client’s request.

People from the Hydroelectric project contacted us with a really strange idea: Generating 3 differents kind of objects to communicate what they want to say to the people of the towns:

1. They wanted an scenographic design for the opening act (with politicians and the president) in each one of the five affected towns. This scenario should be just for that day and need to be in a direct relationship with water.

2. Then they requested some kind of “highrise totem” to be constructed on each town.

3. Finally they wanted us to think about what to do with some new high radio anntenas. They need to transmit from the new radio station and keep people informed about the updates of the construction.

So, with the clouds we are trying to mix the 3 requested topics in one.

The Clouds are suposse to keep as a permanent installation when the event comes to it’s end and will be floating at 150m high all over the towns, replacing what the totems were meant to be. What is interesting about the design is the interactivity between each group of clouds, that will be separated by more than hundred kilometers, but when the clouds get aligned in to an specific position, they can communicate with each other. With this interactivity, it will be possible to have cameras located on each cloud with receptors in the town’s small libraryes or schools. The idea is to open new relationships between the towns that are right now separated and isolated by a complex topography.

The anntenas for radio transmition are also in the clouds, so there’s no need for additional vertical structures. The designers also included a complex system for weather prediction and a motor on ground to change the alttitude of the clouds depending on weather.

The clouds are formed with clusters of smaller ballons. This is because the studio wanted to use standar 1m weather ballons, they are cheap and most appropiated to the economy of the towns. the big helium ballon needs a system for gaining or loosing presure so it can keep it’s size when the atmosferic pressure changes.

The project was done in collaboration with Lovisa Lindström, Sara Hellgren and Sebastian Monsalve. We will try to keep in touch with Paisajes Emergentes to see how the developent of a projects like this is managed and carried out!