Nine buildings in downtown Memphis were integrated with a system that sampled the activity levels from the inside of the buildings and transferred it to the tops to control a dynamic lighting display. "Inside / Out" brings the information of movement and energy within buildings and makes them visible, so as people walked around the South Main gallery district of Memphis they were able to see all the building nodes and the activity inside them from afar.

Each building node of "Inside / Out" used a laser diode system to track the amount of people entering and exiting the space, and then used this variable to display the information on the rooftops. The rooftop system consisted of a microcontroller to intepret the data sent to it from below and solid state relays to control 16 bulbs diffused by blue plexi in a minimally designed display.

"Inside / Out" attempts to use architecture and buildings as giant, living pixels. And by taking the information from inside these pixels to control the lighting outside makes it possible to create a living canvas over downtown Memphis whose acvtive mesh and dynamic display represents the interaction between people and architecture.

Daily News Article here. Video here.

Additional photos by StudioLux


Special Thanks to:
FedEx Institute of Technology
Lantana Projects
Spectrum Lighting
American Institute of Architecture

& all the many wonderful people from Memphis who made this possible!