Lee-Su Huang Resonant Stacks University of Florida Gregory Thomas Spaw American University of Sharjah Jakob Marsico Carnegie Mellon University HERO IMAGE 1 The completed Resonant Stacks installation on site at dusk (Jakob Marsico © 2016 SHO Architecture) E XPERIENCE PRODUCTION NOTES Resonant Stacks consists of two monolithic glowing towers emitting deep resonating Designers: SHO Architecture + Ultra Low Res Studio harmonies. Simultaneously a visual and aural interactive experience, the towers are opaque and densely white during the day, and at night, they are lit from within as light Client: Georgetown Business Improvement District patterns morph in response to the generative sound composition. Status: Completed E XPL ANATION Site Area: 225 sq. ft. Each of the curved towers contains a lighting system, a series of microphones, and a Location: Georgetown, Washington, D.C. speaker system. The exterior is shrink-wrapped in white industrial plastic—opaque in the day, and a smooth, glowing, translucent surface at night. Peeking from the top of each Date: 2016 tower is a metal stack, recalling the aesthetic of the location’s historical industrial past. Visitors “play” the towers like instruments, singing or humming into two interaction points placed at different heights on each stack, and the tone, timbre, and volume of their voices are synthesized and incorporated into the perpetually changing light and sound patterns of the Stacks. Though each stack has distinct sound and visual characteristics, they are also deeply connected. When the voices of the visitors at each tower harmonize, the towers reflect that harmony with specific light patterning. Likewise, the patterning changes when the contributing sounds are dissonant. The resulting experience is one in which visitors are encouraged to not only interact with the installation itself, but also to communicate with one another through both digital and analog means. 168 2 The project’s two stacks were inspired by the surrounding neighbor- 3 Diagram with project elements and interaction (© 2017 SHO Architecture) hood’s historical industrial past (Lee-Su Huang © 2016 SHO Architecture) The site for this installation is a urban canyon-like pathway, three are driven by a generative chord building algorithm and incorporating natural rythmic sounds was an intended to always be in tune with each other and in the same key response to these artificial surroundings. The hard and mode as the chant track. surfaces (brick walls and pavement) around the installation add a layer of reverberation to the sound design, which As part of the interactive portion of the piece, as visitors pairs beautifully with droney, resonating sounds. sing or hum into microphones, their voices too are analyzed and broken down into harmonic components, and pass TECHNICAL AND SOUND DESIGN through a pitch analysis node that identifies the frequen- The microphones, lights, and speakers are all controlled by cies and amplitudes of the five strongest overtones of the a central computer system, which sends and receives data incoming voice and then populates a new resonant filter to and from the towers via CAT5 and audio cables. bank with those value sets. That resonant filter bank is thus “excited” to create a completely synthesized resonating Every layer of sound in this project, whether visitors’ voices voice, and this user-derived reverberation attacks strongly or the generative sound and light composition that runs in then slowly decays, creating a sense of sound drifting away the background when visitors are not interacting with the in wind. These same voice components are also used to piece, is the result of synthesis using a bank of resonant drive the generative lighting patterns that move across filters. The baseline self-generating sound is composed of the surfaces of the towers. Once a new voice is identified three layers: a looping recording of Gregorian chants that and the resulting resonant sound synthesized, the lighting are filtered to wipe out articulation, leaving only resonant control system is programmed to cause a “light explosion” traces of the original vocalizations; a field recording of starting at the microphone location and emanating outward snow falling on trees, the “natural rhythm” track; and white before dissipating at the same rate as the user’s sound. noise. The frequencies of the filter banks in layers two and 169 4 Exploded axonometric drawing documenting material systems, layers and components (© 2019 SHO Architecture) 5 MAX/MSP Synch Processor (left) and voice frequency/amplitude analysis core (right) (© 2019 ULR Studio) 170 Resonant Stacks Huang, Spaw, Marsico 6 Marine grade shrink-wrap application in process (Wang © 2016 SHO Architecture) 7 Doubly curved stack halves with shrink wrap applied (Huang © 2016 SHO Architecture) 8 Looking down into the inner workings of the stack from above 9 On site stacks components with RGB LEDs and electronic elements (Huang © 2016 SHO Architecture) exposed (Huang © 2016 SHO Architecture) Gillis, Matthew. AIA/LA 2x8 Taut.. A+D Museum Exhibition, June 5, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 2012 – June 30, 2012, Los Angeles, CA. Accessed July 15, 2019. This project was supported by the Georgetown Business https://aplusd.org/exhibition/aia-la-presents-2x8-taut/. Improvement District and facilitated by the University of Florida Infinity Fabrication Lab. Project Assistants: Piotr Pasierbiński and Shuyu Wang. IMAGE CREDITS Figure 1: © 2016 Jakob Marsico REFERENCES Figures 2, 7-9, 11-12: © 2016 Lee-Su Huang Auinger, Sam and Bruce Odland. Harmonic Bridge. 1998. MASS Figures 3, 4, 10: © SHO Architecture MoCA, North Adams, MA. Accessed July 15, 2019. https://mass- Figure 5: © Ultra Low Res Studio moca.org/event/bruce-odland-sam-auinger-harmonic-bridge/. Figure 6: © 2016 Shuyu Wang Brooks+Scarpa Architecture Landscape Urban Design. 2013. “Davie-Brown Entertainment.” Project Description. Accessed July 15, 2019. https://brooksscarpa.com/davie-brown-entertainment. 171 10 Diagram showing component, power, and data connectivity between physical computing system (© 2017 SHO Architecture) 11 The installation encourages visitors to audibly interact and spatially engage with the ever changing atmospheric stacks (Huang © 2016 SHO Architecture) 172 Resonant Stacks Huang, Spaw, Marsico 12 Sequence showing animated lighting transitioning across Resonant Stacks (Huang © 2016 SHO Architecture) Lee-Su Huang received his Bachelor of Architecture from collaborative that straddles the territories of teaching, research Feng-Chia University in Taiwan and his Master in Architecture and practice. His previous professional experience includes degree from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. work with the award-winning offices of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, He has practiced in Taiwan with various firms and in the United Preston Scott Cohen Inc., and Asymptote. His scholarly pursuits States with Preston Scott Cohen Inc. in Cambridge, and with incorporate digital visualization, harnessing parametric workflows, LA.S.S.A Architects in Seoul, Korea. As co-founder and principal intelligent material fabrication, and responsive environment design. of SHO, his research and practice centers on digital design+ fabrication methodology, parametric design optimization strategies, as well as kinetic/interactive architectural prototypes. Lee-Su Jakob Marsico is an interaction designer and media artist. He is currently a Lecturer at the University of Florida’s School of runs Ultra Low Res Studio, an arts-engineering firm that works Architecture, teaching graduate and undergraduate level design with developers and architects to integrate dynamic, experiential studios as well as foundation and advanced digital media and installations with the built environment. Jakob currently holds an parametric modeling courses. adjunct instructor position at Carnegie Mellon and is a member of the CoDe Lab in CMU’s School of Architecture. He has a BA in Religious Studies from George Washington University and a Gregory Thomas Spaw is an Assistant Professor at the American Masters of Tangible Interaction Design from Carnegie Mellon University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. He has previ- University. ously held the Ann Kalla Assistant Professorship at Carnegie Mellon University and taught undergraduate and graduate studios, seminars and electives at the University of Tennessee. Concurrent with his academic engagement, Spaw is a principal of SHO, a design 173