With extraordinary fast industrialization, China has witnessed a rapid development in the last 20 years. However it has also caused serious environmental problems. There is a legend in China that there were nine suns in the sky. Hou Yi shot eight with bows and arrows, leaving only one sun in the sky. Today In Beijing, there were more than 40 days in 2016 where people lived in an environment without the sun because of the heavy smog. Through this design, we hope to represent the sun and inspire people to reflect upon the relationship between social development and nature.
# these images are from online.
How does a bee or Viking find the blocked sun?
Vikings can navigate cross the northern Atlantic by using magic “sunstone” even in cloudy days and bees can find their way back to hive in a foggy day.
Sunlight becomes polarized after scattering by the molecule s in the atmosphere. Even in a foggy or totally overcast conditions the pattern of light polarization was similar to that of clear skies.
Represent the sun in air smog
Inspired by bees and Vikings, we decided to design a daylight dome, which can track the position of the sun by polarized light when the sun is blocked and re-render a daylight environment.
Under the dome, only the panel which faces directly to the blocked sun is bright, while other panels are relatively dark. We pick three panels as examples to show how the light patterns vary and how the dome find the position of the sun.
Structure and renderings
We designed a Dome covered by hexagon-shaped polarizer panels. People could stay under it during a foggy day and the polarizers will point out the location of the sun for you. This installment is aim to arouse the people’s awareness that a living environment with blocked sun is abnormal and we should work together to purify the air and clean our industry pollution.
