London-based architect Asif Khan will blow people’s minds by blowing up their faces at the upcoming Sochi Olympics in Russia. The firm's Megaface installation will display huge 3D LED-lit impressions of visitors' faces coming out of a wall, much like a giant pinscreen. Designed for Russian mobile phone giant Megafon's pavilion, this innovative kinetic installation blends new technology with quirky and unconventional design.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gRwa7pA644[/youtube]
Megaface will display three of the Games visitors’ faces at a time, each measuring 20 x 26 feet.The images will change every 20 seconds and it is said that it will portray about 170,000 unique faces during the two-week duration of the Olympics. To develop this mega cool installation, the architect worked closely with Swiss company Iart, who created the revolutionary technology.
The Megaface employs a whooping 10,000 telescopic cylinders (or pins), and it works similarly to the Pinscreen toys popularized in the 90s. Each pin is tipped with an LED light that shines through a thin flexible sheet draped over the facade materializing the 3D faces. The 3-D facial scans needed for the wall portraits will be gathered from photo-booths located on-site and all across Russia at MegaFon
Via Archpaper
Photos by Asif Khan
