Green architecture – self-sustainable media wall in Beijing

Simone Giostra & Partners Architects have designed the GreenPix – Zero Energy Media Wall – a project applying a self-sustainable digital media LED display on the curtain wall of Xicui Entertainment Complex in Beijing, near the site of the 2008 Olympics. Featuring one of the largest color LED display worldwide and the first photovoltaic system integrated into a glass curtain wall in China, GreenPix transforms the building envelop into a self-sufficient organic system, harvesting solar energy by day and using it to illuminate the screen after dark, mirroring a day’s climatic cycle.

Greenpix behaves like an organic system, absorbing solar energy during the day and then generating light from the same power that evening. The project promotes the uncompromised integration of sustainable technology in new Chinese architecture, responding to the aggressive and unregulated economic development currently undertaken by the industry, often at the expense of the environment.

The polycrystalline photovoltaic cells are laminated within the glass of the curtain wall and placed with changing density on the entire building’s skin. 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.

This large scale display is made of RGB LED’s light points on over 2200 square meters large 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 facades.

Xicui’s opaque box-like commercial building gains the ability of communicating with its urban environs through a new kind of digital transparency. Its “intelligent skin” interacts with the building interiors and the outer public spaces using embedded, custom-designed software, transforming the building façade into a responsive environment for entertainment and public engagement.

The first digital public art space in the heart of Beijing GreenPix results from the ambitious collaborative talent of architects, engineers, programmers, artists and curators. The unprecedented immense scale of the display and intensity of the light will allow a generation of young artists, both local and international, to create site specific and socially relevant projects.