This Gigantic Solar Hourglass Could Power 1,000 Danish Homes

Gallery: This Gigantic Solar Hourglass Could Power 1,000 Danish Homes

Every year LAGI asks designers everywhere to imagine how renewable energy can exist in harmony with citizens, nature, and the urban environment.

What do you get when you combine public art with renewable energy? That’s exactly what the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI)‘s annual design competition seeks to explore. Every year LAGI asks designers everywhere to imagine how renewable energy can exist in harmony with citizens, nature, and the urban environment. The organization has just selected three winners from three hundred interdisciplinary teams from 55 countries who responded to the challenge.

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The second-place winner is called Quiver by Mateusz Góra and Agata Gryszkiewicz from Poland. It proposes an ephemeral tower set amidst a field of Miscanthus biofuel crops that grow to a maximum of four meters tall and can be harvested twice a year. The tower set at the far end of the park is a landmark that welcomes boats arriving to the city. The footbridge brings visitors to the top of the installation to enjoy panoramic views of Copenhagen. At night, the tower lights up like a lighthouse with LED lighting that reflects the current wind conditions in Copenhagen. The energy technologies that are used in Quiver are biofuel and aeroelastic flutter.

Antonio Maccà and Flavio Masi from Italy came in third-place with their “eMotions” project. It evokes a huge generator, with a viewing loop representing the generator’s “belt.” Ten generators are represented in the design – the river, the beach, the marine house, the sand dune, the lake, the farm, the arctic, the grassland, the forest and the city. eMotions’ energy technologies include photovoltaic panels, micro-scale vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) and horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWT), stacked ceramic multilayer actuators, and piezoelectric wind energy systems that are meant to generate 2000 MWh.

On October 3, LAGI will be presenting the winners their awards at a special ceremony, exhibition opening, and book launch at the Design Society in partnership with the Danish Design Center.

+ Land Art Generator Initiative