Diller & Scofidio
Blur Building
Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland
“ An inhabitable cloud whirling above a lake”.
architecture magazine
The Blur Building by is a media pavilion for Swiss Expo 2002 now
under construction at the base of Lake Neuchatel in Yverdon-les-Bains,
Switzerland.
Image courtesy Diller & Scofidio
From piles in the water, a tensegrity system of rectilinear struts
and diagonal rods cantilevers out over the lake. Ramps and walkways
weave through the tensegrity system, some of them providing a counterweight
for the structure.
The form is based on the work of Buckminster Fuller.
The pavilion is made of filtered lake water shot as a fine mist through
13,000 fog nozzles creating an artificial cloud that measures 300
feet wide by 200 feet deep by 65 feet high. A built-in weather station
controls fog output in response to shifting climatic conditions such
as temperature, humidity, wind direction, and wind speed.
Image
courtesy Diller & Scofidio
The public can approach Blur via a ramped bridge. The 400 foot long
ramp deposits visitors at the center of the fog mass onto a large
open-air platform where movement is unregulated. Visual and acoustical
references are erased along the journey toward the fog leaving only
an optical “white-out” and the “white-noise” of
pulsing water nozzles.
Image courtesy Diller & Scofidio
Prior to entering the cloud, each visitor responds to a questionnaire/character
profile and receives a "braincoat" (smart raincoat). The
coat is used as protection from the wet environment and storage of
the personality data for communication with the cloud’s computer
network. Using tracking and location technologies, each visitor’s
position can be identified and their character profiles compared to
any other visitor.
Image courtesy Diller & Scofidio
In the Glass Box, a space surrounded by glass on six sides, visitors
will experience a “sense of physical suspension only heightened
by an occasional opening in the fog.”
Image courtesy Diller & Scofidio
As visitors pass one another, their coats will compare profiles and
change color indicating the degree of attraction or repulsion, much
like an involuntary blush - red for affinity, green for antipathy.
The system allows interaction among 400 visitors at any time.
Image courtesy Diller & Scofidio
Visitors can climb another level to the Angel Bar at the summit.
The final ascent resembles the sensation of flight as one pierces
through the cloud layer to the open sky.
Here, visitors relax, take in the view, and choose from a large selection
of commercial waters, municipal waters from world capitals, and glacial
waters. At night, the fog will function as a dynamic and thick video
screen.
Client: EXPO 02 by extasia
Architect: Diller + Scofidio
Principals: Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio
Project Architects: Dirk Hebel, Charles Renfro
Engineers: Passera & Pedretti, Emch & Berger (structural)
Toni Reisen (mechanical)
Media Collaborator: Ben Rubin, EAR Studio
Media Associate: Mark Wasiuta
Blur is part of the Arteplage Yverdon-les-Bains for Swiss EXPO 02.
In a project collaboration, several architects and artists founded
the group “extasia”, which won the competiton for the site
in Yverdon.
Team extasia:
Diller + Scofidio, New York
Delux, Zuerich
Morphing Systems, Zurich
West 8, Rotterdam
Management: Techdata, Bern
