LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is the latest in tracking technology, used in self-driving cars for companies like Uber, Mercedes, Tesla and Google. New media design studio ENESS is already taking self-driving car principles into the built form.
While we watch self-driving cars evolve in front of our square eyes, new media design studio ENESS has pulled apart the mechanics and adopted that same technology to use in architecture.
ENESS uses LiDAR to detect peoples’ actions, turning this information into interactive visuals for their latest high-tech walls, LUMES. Walls are transformed into a light-emitting material that visually reacts to movement, objects, temperature and time of day.
ENESS found LiDAR is a cost-effective method of detecting human movements on a deeper level, down to a fingertip touch. This opens up new possibilities, interiors can now react to people inside a space.
The technology was used in a recent interactive wall installation for Cabrini Hospital Malvern, Australia, where moonlit scenes were programmed to appear at night-time, to bring a visual slice of the outside in for children who can’t step outside.
ENESS continues to use this interactive technology for projects in every context, from public foyers and atriums, to collaborative workspaces and airports. ENESS is keen to speak to collaborators and architects interested in designing world-class immersive spaces, and interested in learning about LUMES interactive potential in architecture.
