“FOLLOW THE LIGHT”WYNDHAM WESTERN GATEWAY PROPOSAL

WERRIBEE, VICTORIA 3444434- Christopher Lam Wai Yam

This Wyndham City Gateway Project design is based on the ‘catching’ of light from cars driving past the site, which is then calculated and redistributed to create a strip effect from the prespective of the driver, depending on the location of the light that was absorbed.

This design is very innovative and dramatic as it uses the motion and light produced by cars to impact the surrounding environmentment and create a stunning visual display intended to entertain passers by and make them remember the Wyndham City council.The structure would be situated on site A, so this effect can be experienced properly for drivers going north on the Princes Highway.

The way in which this design works is; when a car is driving along this section of the Princes Highway at night, the light from their headlights is caught by light catchments that are arranged on each side of the road close to the tarmac.

This captured light is transferred into a processor through fibre optic cables which redirects the captured light to a certain location of the structure (depending on position of the driver ) to create a cloud-like effect ahead, in the driver’s direction of travel.

Grasshopper was used to create a random distribution of points on a strip of surface in which the arrangement is defined by the distance from an attractor point. Using attractor points, the surface was populated with random nodes in a gradually varying density to represent the changing effect of the lgiht in a ‘vapor’ or ‘cloud’ effect. Each point represents a node of the end of a optical fibre cable. Points with higher density represent lit up fibres, whereas points with low density represent non lit fibres.

Note: elipse represents car headlights

Top diagram: Car Approaching

Middle diagram: Car headlights illuminate structure

Bottom diagram: Structure interacts with movement of car

The structure is composed of flattened, prefabricated plywood strips with perforated holes. The perforations allow for the fibre optics to be wound through and connected. The main plywood structure would be botled down to a stable surface on the ground in smaller modules.

While this design is primarily focused on performing at night, the bending strip with intertwining optical fibre cables creates very interesting shadow patterns.

In brighter conditions, the reflective nature of both the strip and the optical fibre also create interesting views and effects as the sun hits them, thus allwoing the design to also be utilized during the day, not only during night time.

Heavy fishing line was used instead of fibre optic cable in this model so the result is not as good as it should be. Therefore the actual structure would be more effective in carrying and releasing light than depicted in the model.

Construction Process & Materiality

Diagram showing how the the structure interacts with the ground.