Fiber Cloud
Fiber Cloud
organic responsive landmark
An organic sculptural landmark that responds to human interaction and expresses context awareness using hundreds of sensors and over 15,000 individually addressable optical fibers. Constructed of carbon glass, rising over four meters high, and containing more than 65 kilometers of fiber optics, the Cloud encourages visitors to touch and interact with information in new ways, manifesting emotions and behavior through sound and a dichotomy of luminescence and darkness. Located in downtown Florence outside the Fortezza da Basso. the Cloud is part of the “Redesigning Fashion Trade Shows” project that Pitti Immagine launched with MIT Mobile Experience Lab in January 2007. It is a long-term project to creatively re-think the trade show concept and propose innovative technologies, perspectives and sensory experiences for fashion trade shows. In June of 2008, the Fiber Cloud will officially debut at the 74th Pitti Uomo Trade Show.
Design Process →
Brief
In this project we collaborated with Pitti Immagine, a leading organizer of trade shows for the international fashion industry to creatively re-think the trade show concept. Our design intent was to help join the trade show’s digital and physical worlds by proposing innovative technologies, perspectives, and sensory experiences for fashion trade shows.
Concept Generation
To inform concept generation, we began our design process by immersing ourselves in the trade show to understand the experience and identify points for natural intervention. In Spring of 2007, a five-month student design workshop with employees of Pitti Immagine produced five conceptual contact points – registration, badges, entrance/exit points, extended attendee contact, and an online/onsite system. While the system described here focuses primarily on badges and an online/onsite system, all five points have stayed under the project’s consideration (some through separate research initiatives, such as the pitti.mobi).