This giant colourful honeycomb is called the SOL Dome. Made from thousands of interconnected fibre optics, the structure responds to its environment as if it were a living, breathing plant.
Created by London-based design firm Loop.pH, the SOL Dome was built in Midland, Michigan, for a local art festival that lasts through the end of the month. It’s relatively small and lightweight — eight metres by four metres, and it weighs only 40 kilograms. But what it lacks in size, it makes up for in animation. Its chicken wire-like frame is made of thousands of individual circles woven from composite fibres that change according to its surroundings. These loops are lighted by a circular matrix of solar-powered LEDs that create a symphony of light powered by a CO2 sensor. There’s a video below that shows a little bit about what that looks like in real life.
The whole design of the structure has a little science behind it too — the geometry of the SOL Dome is based on the chemical and molecular bonds between carbon atoms. Loop.pH says the SOL Dome is somewhat of a basis for what it sees as a future of building design:
Ultimately, we have a vision for an entirely new type of architecture that responds and adapts to its environment, similarly to a plant and its surrounding ecosystem. We dream of a living architecture that photosynthesises, moves and orientates in accordance to the sun. It is an architecture whereby the inhabitants can actively participate in its shape, form and function.
If you suspend disbelief for a second, it kind of feels like the SOL Dome is alive. [SOL Dome, Loop.PH via DesignBoom]