Even tho this looks like something Lady Gaga would wear! This is 'The Cloud', London’s Olympic village, dreamed by architects, artists and engineers.
The Cloud proposes a new form of monument, a new form of collective expression and experience, and an updated symbol of our dawning age. It proposes an entirely new form of observation deck, high above the Olympics, one from which one can not only see the whole of London, but the whole of the world, immersed in the euphoric gusts of weather and world data. It offers London’s highest park and an immersion within both our great clouded skies and the cosmos of our dataworlds – as well as a live information system transmitting data and imagery from around the city and the world. It presents the perfect Olympic symbol – a million unbounded particles contributing briefly towards a vast, beautiful, constantly-fluctuating whole. London, with its diversity, internationalism and tolerance, unites countries; the Cloud unites all people.
People. People are the Cloud - its principal particulate. Seen from afar, their silhouettes animate its transparency. They help its construction through a global, innovative fundraising process (or ‘cloudraising’). Their gravitational potential energy, accumulated while they rise up to the Cloud, is then collected and transformed into electric energy by three regenerative lifts. This will amount to an estimated total of 20 MWh over the course of the year, covering a substantial fraction of the Cloud’s energy needs. People are also rewarded with the opportunity to influence the Cloud - to contribute to its output and participate in this giant collective self-protrait.
Inflatables. Each inflatable has its own air pump that controls air pressure level. All pumps are networked, thus forming a distributed, self-regulating system. Each pump will generate energy by letting air in and out during the daily heating and cooling cycles due to solar radiation. Inflatables on the periphery of the cloud are insulated with nanogel and kept hotter through internal resistors - so that they can float freely in air.
Sun. The remaining energy for the Cloud will be produced by thin film photovoltaics printed on inflatable membranes, doubling as solar shading in the summer in order to preserve maximum internal thermal comfort inside. It is expected that this will collect 200 MWh per year, making the Cloud not only zero emission but effectively ‘below-zero emission’ (the Cloud will be a net producer of energy to the East London community).
Wind. Wind will play with the cloud and the freely floating inflatables at its periphery. The tower shaft will utilize heat generated and wind pressure differential to develop airflow - like Jörg Schlaich’s solar tower turbines in Spain and Australia. The wind will naturally ventilate the inhabited spaces inside the Cloud during the summer, while they’ll be sealed to maintain internal heat generated by the occupants and the sun during the winter.
Water. Water is used to generate energy through a series of micro turbines, placed in both the rainwater and black water risers. Rainwater is collected locally - mid-air - by the lattice of cloud spheres, saving on energy requirements for pumping water up from ground level, and serving as a battery for thermal energy storage. Waste water flushed and rainwater drained from the cloud will generate energy as they flow down the risers).
+ Raise The Cloud
