Massive zero energy digital media art wall to open in Beijing

Simone Giostra & Partners Architects have designed the GreenPix Zero Energy Media Wall that applies sustainable and digital media technology to the curtain wall of Xicui Entertainment Complex in Beijing, near the site of the 2008 Olympics.

Set to launch next month, the wall is billed as the world’s largest color LED display and features the first photovoltaic system integrated into a glass curtain wall in China. GreenPix will harvest solar energy by day and use it to illuminate the screen after dark. “The Media Wall will provide the city of Beijing with its first venue dedicated to digital media art, while offering the most radical example of sustainable technology applied to an entire building’s envelope to date”, said Simone Giostra.

Polycrystalline photovoltaic cells are laminated within the glass of the curtain wall and placed with changing density on the entire building’s skin to capture the sun’s rays. The density pattern increases building’s performance, allowing natural light when required by interior program, while reducing heat gain and transforming excessive solar radiation into energy for the media wall.

The GreenPix wall is a large-scale display comprising 2,292 color (RGB) LED light points comparable to a 24,000 sq. ft. (2.200 m2) monitor screen for dynamic content display. The very large scale and the characteristic low resolution of the screen enhances the abstract visual qualities of the medium, providing an art-specific communication form in contrast to commercial applications of high resolution screens in conventional media façades.

The building, which promotes the integration of sustainable technology in new Chinese architecture, will open to the public in June 2008, with a specially commissioned program of video installations and live performances by artists including Xu Wenkai, Michael Bell Smith, Takeshi Murata, Shih Chieh Huang, Feng Mengbo and Varvara Shavrova.