Seoul, South Korea is filled with blinding light-up displays and headache-inducing neon screens. But residents of the city who want to see these displays put to good use need only take a trip to the World Cup Stadium’s Peace Park, which is where this beautiful Living Light sculpture blooms. The permanent outdoor pavilion and glass canopy projects up-to-the minnute information about local air quality, and locals can send it a text message to receive a report from anywhere.
Designed by Soo-in Yang and David Benjamin of The Living, Living Light’s glass skin is actually a massive redrawn map of 27 Seoul neighborhoods. Every 15 minutes, neighborhoods light up in order of best air quality to worst based on real-time sensors from the Korean Ministry of Environment. And each night, neighborhoods are illuminated if air quality is better on that particular day than the same time last year. Seoul citizens can also text the installation and expect a response (presumably detailing air quality in certain neighborhoods).
Yang and Benjamin imagine that similar glass skins could one day be attached to buildings, effectively making building facades a new kind of public space — one that is both beautiful and informative.
+ Living Light
Never mind what it does, that is one cool sculpture