Windswept is featured in a recent publication from Princeton Architectural Press: "Hypernatural" (2015, Brownel, Swackhamer).
"By looking to nature as a teacher rather than simply as a source for raw materials, pioneers in the emerging biomimicry movement are developing design methods and materials to create intelligent buildings that emulate life itself."
Hundreds of spinning blades reveal the invisible patterns of the wind in American artist Charles Sowers' kinetic installation on the facade of the Randall Museum in San Francisco (+ movie).
Read More“Windswept” by Charles Sowers is a beautiful kinetic sculpture that shows the direction of the wind with 612 rotating arrows. The sculpture is installed on the facade of the Randall Museum in San Francisco.
Sanjay Gangal has laid out the technical spec. behind Windswept in this feature.
With all of these data points firing at once, the result is fascinating and a touch hypnotic. Whereas I’d expect the entire wall of arrows to point the same way, they never do. Instead, it’s more like watching the Plinko of air currents, with every peg offering a largely unpredictable--but in retrospect inevitable--possibility.
Windswept is a fascinating interactive facade that moves in response to the wind, revealing the exact direction it's blowing at a specific location. Located on the exterior of the Randall Museum in San Francisco, Charles Sower's wind-driven kinetic installation is part art and part science experiment. His precision instrument showcases the complex interactions between the wind and the building and gives us insight into something that isn't normally invisible.
Commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission for a permanent installation at the Randal Museum, Windswept, designed by Charles Sowers Studios, is a wind-driven kinetic facade that transforms a blank wall into an observational instrument that reveals the complex interactions between wind and environment. The design consists of 612 freely-rotating directional arrows, which serve as discrete data points indicating the direction of local flow within the larger phenomenon. More images and architects’ description after the break.
"A big part of what I do is just notice stuff," shrugged artist Charles Sowers, whose fascination with wind patterns led to the creation of the enormous installation, "Windswept," at the Randall Museum in San Francisco's Corona Heights neighborhood.
“Windswept uses the power of the wind to create a kinetic sculpture that is engaging, fun and beautiful. Children and adults alike will enjoy this mesmerizing artwork, and perhaps be inspired to think about the wind as a potential energy source,” said public art program director Susan Pontious.