isopleth

a supercomputer courtyard, a functional landscape, the sky shown as data.

Scientists of the institution participate in formulating a mathematical function that estimates how pleasant a given topography is to watch and sit in.
The “best of all worlds” is found by an optimization algorithm and constructed from soil in the courtyard. A mix of wild plants with different preferences is sown and the surface is left to evolve on its own.

A camera stares into the sky. Brightness variations of the images are displayed as a contour-plot on the surface of the computing facility by a laser scanner. The rhythms of day and night, weather and seasons are transformed into a slowly moving pattern of lines, a graphical style that originates from topographical maps, but is now commonly used to display any kind of data that has spacial variations, just like the results of the simulations that are carried out inside the building.

The concept was developed for an art in architecture competition and scored second place. Both components revolve around the connection between calculations and the physical world, and the shortcomings as well as the beauties of abstraction.