river glow
green guest installation
September 17th thru 25th
Designers/Inventors David Benjamin and Soo-in Yang
Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
New York, New York
River Glow is a real-time interface to water quality and public interest in the environ-ment.
A network of floating trans-parent tubes in Elliott Bay at Waterfront Park house a range of sensors below water and an array of lights above water. The sensors monitor water quality and human
interest in the marine eco-system. The lights respond to the sensors and create feed-back loops between humans, marine life, and their shared environment. An SMS inter-face allows citizens to text-message the bay, to receive real-time information about water quality.
Instead of treating the bodies of water with a do-not-disturb approach, the project encourages curiosity and engagement. Instead of treating the water as a reflective surface to mirror our own image and our own architecture, the project establishes a two-way interface between environments of land and water. The installation creates a dynamic and captivating layer of light above the surface of the water and makes visible the invisible; maps a new ecology of people, marine life, buildings, and public space; and sparks public interest and discussion.