Picture of the water tower in Yekaterinburg.

Scenario of the concept designed for the water tower.

A project I have traveled for to Yekaterinburg Russia. For this project inhabitants around the tower were interviewed and a concept was created to draw more attention for the cultural heritage in the city. The concept is light projection on a water tower.

Description

A project that has been running for some time in Yekaterinburg is called YEK2.0. The project aims at celebrating the cultural history of Yekaterinburg, embodied by amongst others the ancient water tower in the city center. The goal is to make the city attractive for the new generation by using its history instead of demolishing it. Inspiration for this goal was taken from the use of cultural heritage in the city of Eindhoven. The ‘Witte Dame’ in the center of Eindhoven is provided as main example of how to create value for cultural heritage and provide the buildings with a practical function.

I participated in this project in 2012. I was really exited to do a project abroad with students from the Industrial Design and the Architecture department. From the field research done in the neighborhood of the White Tower, conclusions were drawn which formed the starting point of the design iteration. The current interaction between people and the tower is mainly just passing by the tower by car. The tower is used as point of reference but has a very negative association for locals in the area. The tower is situation in the middle of a neighborhood in which many things are going on. There is however little interaction between the various happenings in the neighborhood. After the field research, the design direction of this project became to create value for the water tower by turning it into a symbol for the city. The decision was made to focus on creating a positive association for the white tower by adding aesthetic value.

The concept works on two different levels, both individual and collective. For every individual car driver, the experience of passing the tower is enriched by colored light traveling with your car and entering the water reservoir of the tower. This makes the moment of passing the White Tower a more positive experience. On a collective level, the water reservoir of the White Tower will be filled with color light representing all the cars passing the tower. This projected image on the White Tower will become a collaborative art piece of the citizens in the neighborhood.

Clients

Municipality of Eindhoven, Ural State Academy for Architecture and Art and the Technical University of Eindhoven