Digital Facade

‘Media façades’ and large-sized screens are increasingly characterising urban spaces. Up to now, though, the opaque monitor surfaces of billboards integrated into façades have impaired the interior rooms behind them and prevented them from receiving light and ventilation. A new system incorporating a larger pixel raster is now allowing these screens to be looked through when image resolution is sufficient, thus combining video quality with transparency. The pixels do not – as is usually the case – cover the whole surface but are positioned in Perspex tubes at a distance from each other. The media façade system MediaBIOSe is a further development in this field: it is made up of combined, rotating lamellae fitted with anti-glare shields and LEDs and integrated photovoltaic elements. Combining architectural and communications aspects, at night the building envelope transforms into a digital media façade in the urban space.