They have a FLARE for kinetic movement...

Some of you might know my obsession for the pneumatically actuated installation known as Hyposurface. I can't figure out if it's the flow or limitless functional possibilities that intrigues me more, but I'm fascinated by every color, click and wave.



Recently, a robot junkie peep of mine in San Fransisco pointed me to the water sculptures of William Pye and, for whatever reason, I was reminded more so of the mechanical movement in Hyposurface than the organic, hypnotic movement of Pye's water sculptures.

Call it an obsession with simulated movement, but for whatever reason, I'm more impressed with technological mimicry than its natural brethren. So I decided to go back to the Hyposurface concept and see if there was anything new on the market.

Needless to say, I'm in love with a new piece of technology. Take one part wall curtain, two parts stealth bomber, multiply by peyote and you've got:

FLARE: Kinetic Ambiant Reflection Membrane

FLARE turns the building facade into a penetrable kinetic membrane, breaking with all conventions of the building surface as a static skin. The FLARE system consists of a number of tiltable metal flake bodies supplemented by individually controllable pneumatic cylinders.


Due to the developed pattern, an infinite array of flakes can be mounted on any building or wall surface in a modular system of multiplied FLARE units.

Each metal flake reflects the bright sky or sunlight when in vertical standby position. When the flake is tilted downwards by a computer controlled pneumatic piston, its face is shaded from the sky light and this way appears as a dark pixel.

By reflecting ambient or direct sunlight, the individual flakes of the FLARE system act like pixels formed by natural light. The system is controlled by a computer to form any kind of surface animation. Sensor systems inside and outside the building communicate the buildings activity directly to the FLARE system which acts as the buildings lateral line.

Read more about FLARE Facade HERE.

Vortex Mania...

I recently posted a blog about evil genius Louis Michaud and his wind vortex engine. Well, it appears as though we're only mere moments away from earth and fire vortex engines, because somebody is already working on a water vortex. Brilliant insanity!

From the website:


Austrian engineer Franz Zotlöterer has constructed a low-head power plant that makes use of the kinetic energy inherent in an artificially induced vortex. The water's vortex energy is collected by a slow moving, large-surface water wheel, making the power station transparent to fish - there are no large pressure differences built up, as happens in normal turbines...

Zotlöterer's results are quite respectable. The cost of construction for his plant was half that of a conventional hydroelectric installation of similar yield and the environmental impact is positive, instead of negative.

Although I understand a national fixture like Niagara Falls would never be permitted to install something this grand in scale, it does tickle-me-interest to think what sheer power would be generated from a world wonder so vast in size. Conversely, I'm now working on a much smaller scale, developing a mini-water vortex for my loo. Something's got to charge my cell phone!

Seem much less invasive than our other options:

Tapping the trailer park...

Are tornadoes emissions free?

Louis Michaud is a madman, but like most people gone mad he's obviously brilliant. Oddly brilliant. Brilliant to the point of being crazy. How about I just call him a dreamer.


Anybody with a tooth can tell you just how powerful a tornado really is, but Michaud wants to tell you how powerful it could be. His dream is to harness the power of the vortex for energy gain, and although the idea sounds vaguely similar to my Hurricane Drink Mixer, I'll let it slide.

Michaud has spent his life's work, about four decades, studying tornadoes and hurricanes. He believes it is possible to engineer man-made vortexes (a word?) in a controlled environment in order to produce clean, emissions-free energy...enough energy to power 200,000 homes at full-scale!

"I'm talking about a 200-megawatt device, which would be 200 metres in diameter," says Michaud. That's enough electricity for 200,000 homes.

"The vortex would be one to 20 kilometres high, and have 10 turbines (at the bottom) each producing 20 megawatts."

Read the rest of the article in the Toronto Star.

The Vortex Engine Patent from Wikipedia:

The concept of a Vortex Engine, independently proposed by Norman Louat [1] and Louis Michaud [2], aims to replace large physical chimneys with a vortex of air created by a shorter, less-expensive structure.

Michaud's patent claims that the main application is that the air flow through the louvers at the base will drive low-speed air turbines (21), generating twenty percent more electric power from the heat normally wasted by conventional power plants. That is, the vortex engine's proposed main application is as a "bottoming cycle" for large power plants that need cooling towers.

The application proposed by Louat in his patent claims is to provide a less-expensive alternative to a physical Solar updraft tower. In this application, the heat is provided by a large area of ground heated by the sun and covered by a transparent surface that traps hot air, in the manner of a Greenhouse. A vortex is created by deflecting vanes set at an angle relative to the tangent of the outer radius of the solar collector.

A similar proposal is to eliminate the transparent cover. [3] This scheme would drive the chimney-vortex with warm seawater or warm air from the ambient surface layer of the earth. In this application, the application strongly resembles a dust-devil with an air-turbine in the center.