Building Projection Round-Up

Posted by Justin Cone

Over the last year or so, we’ve seen a lot projects involving the projection of video onto architectural structures. The most interesting of these are films that actually take the contours of the building into account, creating perceptual tricks of scale and encouraging viewers to think of the buildings as malleable structures.

To get the full effect, it helps to think about the experience of being a visitor to one of these structures—rather than simply viewing them as web video. Go full-screen, if you can.

555 KUBIK

Ubranscreen teamed up with art director Daniel Rossa to create whimsical deconstructions of the Hamburg Kunsthalle.

Tetragram for Enlargment

Collective Apparati Effimeri took a minimal approach to their projection on the Malatesta Castle Verucchio.

EasyWeb Building Projection Reel

French studio EasyWeb shows off three years of their playful interaction with architectural forms.

Mint Plaza

Obscura Digital was commissioned by McAfee to liven up Mint Plaza in downtown San Fransisco.

Phyletic Museum

Robert Seidel applies his unique approach to abstract CG imagery to the Phyletic Museum in Germany.
seidel phyletic museum

Puma “Lift”

Dreamed up by agency Droga5 for Puma, “Lift” turns the model inside-out, creating a dynamic performance space.
puma

Quadrature

More minimal animation in this a/v performance by Alican Aktürk and Refik Anadol, a.k.a. Griduo.

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About the author

Justin Cone

/ justincone.com
Together with Carlos El Asmar, Justin co-founded Motionographer, F5 and The Motion Awards. He currently lives in Austin, Texas with is wife, son and fluffball of a dog. Before taking on Motionographer full-time, Justin worked in various capacities at Psyop, NBC-Universal, Apple, Adobe and SCAD.
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6 Comments

temple16

The builders of the castle could never have perceived how it’s walls would be used centuries after it was completed, that’s what strikes me about this.

frequent flyer

I agree! Who could have foreseen that these buildings would become a canvas for a new work of art? This new reinvention of existing architecture through nondestructive urban communication is fantastic! I think Liz Diller said it best, “Aside from keeping the rain out and producing some useful space, architecture nothing but a special effects machine.”

Special effects machine, indeed!

Griduo

Quadrature is a audio/visual performance project by Griduo* in collaboration with Due3* that interacts with the perception of santralistanbul Art and Culture Center’s Main Gallery building located in Istanbul/Turkey. It shows how audio/visual techniques can transform, create, expand, amplify and interpret spaces by using large scale video projections on architecture.

It is a live audio/visual performance composed of animated monochrome geometrical shapes matching the real size and form of the quadrilateral alluminium modules which form the facade of the building. The visual performance is accompanied with a digitally produced soundscape consisting of abstract sounds synchronized to the movement of images re-shaping and transforming the building on which they are projected. The building in turn influences and transforms the projections as well.

*Griduo is formed of Alican Aktürk and Refik Anadol both graduate students and teaching assistants in İstanbul Bilgi University Visual Communication Design. Working in the fields of live video/audio performance and architectural photography, the duo is particularly interested in the relationship between architecture and media.

VVVV Developer; Sebastian Neitsch

Myaka

You know what, watching first half was extremely boring, I was about to write about it BUT when second half started I took all my thoughts back – this is unbelievable!
Thanks for sharing!

ocelot

hah. same here.
when it then actually started to get whacky i had a huge smile on my face.

BrandonLori

To watch this fresh new marriage between Motion Graphics and Architecture is truly inspiring. It was only a few years ago – when the beginnings of the courtship where infantile – that you would hear of, see, or read tutorials about “digital tags,” being projected onto buildings, and now, to see the joining of the two exist together so harmoniously is (hopefully) a sign of things to come.

On an economic note, I see this as a huge opportunity for cities who are looking to develop, or attract visitors/tourism (after all, look at Time Square). Architecture itself is becoming the new signage, where what once where just walls, now function as screen space. Amazing!

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