GreenPix - Zero Energy Media Wall

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Location
Xicui Road, Beijing, China
Project
2005
Completion
2008
Client
Mr. Zhang Yongduo, Jingya Corporation
Scope of Services
Architecture Design
Contract Documents
Construction Administration
Media Concept
Mark van S.
Bernardo Zavattini
Structural Engineer
Ove Arup & Partners
Lighting Engineer
Ove Arup & Partners
Gross Floor Area
180,000 sf
Construction Cost
Confidential
Program
Entertainment Center
Sustainable Media Wall

GreenPix – Zero Energy Media Wall – is a groundbreaking project applying sustainable and digital media technology to the curtain wall of Xicui entertainment complex in Beijing, near the site of the 2008 Olympics.

Featuring the largest color LED display worldwide and the first photovoltaic system integrated into a glass curtain wall in China, the building performs as a self-sufficient organic system, harvesting solar energy by day and using it to illuminate the screen after dark, mirroring a day’s climatic cycle.

The Media Wall will provide the city of Beijing with its first venue dedicated to digital media art, while offering the most radical example of sustainable technology applied to an entire building’s envelope to date.

“The Media Wall will provide the city of Beijing with its first venue dedicated to digital media art, while offering the most radical example of sustainable technology applied to an entire building’s envelope to date”, said Simone Giostra. The building opened to the public in June 2008, with a specially commissioned program of video installations and live performances by artists including: Xu Wenkai, Michael Bell Smith, Takeshi Murata, Shih Chieh Huang, Feng Mengbo and Varvara Shavrova.

With the support of leading German manufacturers Schueco and SunWays, the architect Simone Giostra with Arup developed a new technology for laminating photovoltaic cells in a glass curtain wall and oversaw the production of the first glass solar panels by Chinese manufacturer SunTech. The polycrystalline photovoltaic cells are laminated within the glass of the curtain wall and placed with changing density on the entire building’s skin. The density pattern increases building’s performance, allowing natural light when required by interior program, while reducing heat gain and transforming excessive solar radiation into energy for the media wall.

Xicui’s opaque box-like commercial building gains the ability of communicating with its urban environs through a new kind of digital transparency. Its “intelligent skin” interacts with the building interiors and the outer public spaces using embedded, custom-designed software, transforming the building façade into a responsive environment for entertainment and public engagement.

The full integration of media/information technology with architecture in an urban context represents a new kind of communication surface devoted to unprecedented forms of art, while projecting information about the behavior and activity of the building to a wide range of distances and engaging a vast audience within the city of Beijing.

The innovative use of technology and experimental approach to communication and social interaction defines new standards in the context of urban interventions worldwide, raising global interest in the integration of digital technology with architecture and reinforcing the reputation of Beijing as a centre for innovation and urban renewal.

GreenPix is a large-scale display comprising of 2,292 color (RGB) LED’s light points comparable to a 24,000 sq. ft. (2.200 m2) monitor screen for dynamic content display. The very large scale and the characteristic low resolution of the screen enhances the abstract visual qualities of the medium, providing an art-specific communication form in contrast to commercial applications of high resolution screens in conventional media façades.