tecnopolis urban icon

1ST price national contest.
IDEAS FOR AN ICONIC URBAN ELEMENT FOR THE INTERACTIVE PARK OF TECNOPOLIS OF ART, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY

DESCRIPTIVE REPORT
How do you generate an emblem to represent our times where “everything solid tends to dissolve into air” and where the most dizzying advances in knowledge involve the management of information across new virtual media?
How do you generate an icon that represents the federalist spirit of the Republic of Argentina, transcending the concept of place, so that every citizen of each of the provinces can participate in this event in an active manner and not as a mere spectator, rethinking the obsolete relational structures of center-periphery?
We propose generating an iconic urban emblem that surpasses the limits of the plot of land and functions based upon a concept of connectivity between the active site and the fundamental plazas of each one of the Argentine provinces.
To achieve this concept, we propose a system whose basic unit consists of a very light pneumatic structure consisting of an inflated helium balloon 15m in diameter tethered to the ground by an iron cable attached at the other end to a concrete base covered on all sides by digital LED screens.
Each basic unit will represent one of the provinces and will be situated on the lot in accordance to its territorial coordinates, forming, together with the other units, a collection, formal and esthetic, that will give birth to the iconic urban emblem of Tecnópolis. Each one of the balloons will project onto screens located at its base information related to the science, technology and art of its province and, in addition, will transmit live information for its twin unit that will be located in the fundamental province which it represents throughout the duration of an established period of time. At the same time, the unit located in each province will transmit live information about the events taking place in the Tecnópolis park and its plaza.
In this way, the real emblem will not be simply the material reflections that we will encounter at each site, but the connections and the communications that will bifurcate the space from one side of the territory to the other.

Authors: Ignacio Montaldo, Arch. Nicolas Risso GD. (www.nicorisso.com)
Project team: Martin Janssens, Arch. Rachele Pafici, Ing.
Photo – stop motion: Santiago Melazzini
Animation: Abel Gómez