The installation consists of a constellation of over 1,000 suspended LEDs, arranged to recreate the position of every light source in the AA building.

LightHive, an installation by Alex Haw

LightHive, an exhibition, conceived and designed by Alex Haw. It’s a gigantic lighthouse broadcasting the activity of the Architectural Association through its enormous windows to the world beyond.
The entire AA building was modelled on a scale of 1:6 to fit into the exhibition space. The building was represented purely by the actual light sources present in the building itself.
The precise position, intensity, function and colour temperature of each and every fixture was
co-located within one exhibition room.

Brief

A Georgian building from the 1800s with a rabbit warren of offices, workshops, studios and meeting places to be connected up wirelessly, with no maintenance, at low cost, and where the installation and breakdown of the exhibition does not disrupt the daily operation of the building.

Solution

EnOcean’s energy harvesting wireless sensor technology provides a solution to the problem. The building comprises of 160 cellular zones that were laced with a range of sensors, from door contacts to seat sensors, infra-red detectors to IP cameras, which were then wired back across the network to the luminous sky of the exhibition space.
The incredible end result is that activity in a room triggers a signal to a central processing unit, activating one or more of the 1000 bespoke LEDs, placing the room in vast 3D map of the building.

Technology

EnOcean sensors feed information to nodal receivers located around the building, and on into a Beckhoff PLC. Each node is wired back across the IP network, to a Pharos DMX controller, and on to the luminous sky of the exhibition space. A clear demonstration is of the seamless interoperability of EnOcean equipment from different manufacturers in a single project.