The University of New Mexico’s sports arena underwent a major renovation to be re-branded as “The Pit”. As part of that renovation, several artists were shortlisted to propose a new facade system for its main stair tower. The client already had an idea of LED lit panels in mind. Ivan Depena and I worked on the project from the beginning.

   I pitched the idea that the facade should respond to the sound coming from within the stadium. When nothing is going on, there would be a soothing wave rolling over the facade. At times that there are activities such as a sports game, the sound levels are higher and would would start introducing more colors to the facade. At certain moments when bursts of noise occur, such as when a point is scored during a game, the facade would erupt in a flurry of activity.

   The presentation consisted of a series of images and animations created using a parametric algorithm I came up with in Grasshopper. The animated texture was created in Rhino and then animated using CGI software Blender 3D. Despite efforts to keep on schedule, changes in the design and the collaboration between me and Ivan from different States led to a final crunch the night before the presentation. I stayed up all night to make sure the computer did not crash during the animation rendering (which it did, several times), and eventually had to use an online render farm service in order to get the final frames in time.

   The animations communicated the intents of the proposal perfectly to our clients, and in the end we won the contract.