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Chromaticity Pavilion

Project Overview

 

This project’s origins came from an assignment for a class entitled "Visual Imaging for the Electronic Age”. The goal of this project was to create a pavilion with a footprint no bigger than 15x10 meters. The pavilion needed to have glass elements and an area to house 4 photogrammetry models, individual contributions from the four members of this team. The final product was a chromaticity "butterfly" that dynamically bathes the viewer and pavilion in a rainbow light display. As the lead designer for this project, I oversaw the design and construction of the model including concept renders, material editing, lighting, and 3D modeling.

 

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The Inspiration 

 

This project uses inspiration from the CIE chromaticity diagram and the Greta Oto butterfly to create a sweeping awning that spans the entire pavilion. The CIE diagram is a visual aid that shows the entirety of the color spectrum visible to the human eye while the Great Oto is a small species of butterfly most noted for its transparent, "glass" wings. By noting the similarities in these two shapes, the idea of assigning colors to organically shaped glass panes that correlate to their position on the chromaticity diagram was born. The beautiful dark brown hue of the outer structure of the butterfly wings was also reimagined as a cherrywood and steel lattice to hold these individual panes of glass.

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The Models

 

Using the Adobe photogrammetry software, ReMake, my teammates and I were able to recreate real-world 3D objects in a digital space. The process included taking dozens, and in some cases, hundreds, of highly detailed photographs of objects. After the software created a preliminary model, we edited out the extraneous information captured and refined the model to best reflect its actual appearance. I used this opportunity to preserve an 11th-century depiction of Vishnu from the Bengal region of India. I've since used this software for other art preservation projects that ensure the fidelity of the copy is higher than that of a series of photographs.

 

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The Pavilion

 

The final pavilion featured two of these chromaticity wings that encompass the entire space as both a structural element and a visual display. During certain times of day and weather conditions, the colored panes would project onto the white floor surface and reflection pool to create a fantasia of color. These wings, inverted from one another, directly correspond to their position on the chromaticity diagram. This process included making the lattice frame in the shape of the CIE chart, overlaying the chart onto the lattice, and selecting the color directly in the center of each hexagon. Visitors could enter from any side of the pavilion while understanding the separation of gathering space from gallery space. Viewers could then interact with the photogrammetry models and adjust the sun's position to understand the environment's effect on the space. 

 

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