Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Designed by Pneuhaus and Can-duit for Baltimore Light City, the Canopy is an inflatable bike-powered sculptural array.
These tree-like sculptures, inflate, illuminate, shelter, morph, and disappear as an interactive environment that invites its visitors to power their own experience.
The Canopy is a grove of illuminated tree-like sculptures that continuously transform, illuminating and expanding as participants power them with bike-driven generators.
The environmental installation empowers its visitors by giving them a first-hand experience of green electricity generation.
As participants pedal they inflate, deflate, illuminate, and darken a neon-colored grove of tree like sculptures between them.
As Canopy’s players pedal and see their efforts transformed into large scale beauty and are invited to be amazed with themselves.
The heart of the installation is the excitement held between the participants that is then reflected back to them by the sculpture in a feedback loop of exuberance.
Each canopy is made of flexible, light-passing white nylon and holds eighty feet of LEDs. As they fill and release air they spin slowly on their stands like the skirts of a dancer.
In daylight, the canopies are white and reflect the ambient colors of the sky and site as they mix subtly with the colors projected by the LEDs within. In the sun the bright hues and geometric patterns of the custom-made bicycles pop in the sun.
At night the red, blue, and green of the LEDs within the canopies become incredibly vivid as they emit a beacon-like glow encompassing the installation with festive light.
Canopy is fundamentally interactive.
The designers wanted to create an installation that would bring event-goers into collaboration with us and, more importantly, one another.
The conversation that led to the piece began with the bicycle generators, and every other design decision from the form to the movement of the canopies was made to best reach the potential of the biking interaction and the variable power it generates.
The bicycles are arranged in an inward-facing circle around the grove.
Riders are often accompanied by onlookers who are moved to cheering which attracts more passersby into the glow to investigate.
Some people choose to pass between the bikes exploring the space within the grove on foot.
They play with the soft sculptures as they pass close to the ground, take photos within the dreamlike backdrop, and stand close to the bases allowing the canopies to open and close around them.
The interactions Canopy invites foreground joyous collaboration and overlays human community with the ecological community through the image of trees and its core of green power.
As architects, designers, and artists, Pneuhaus collaborates on new forms, new ideas and new ways to define public space in ways they hope to be joyful and inspiring.
Can-Duit is a collaboration between founder Natan Lawson with Sarah Jacklin, Lars Peterson, and Ann Russell.
Project: The Canopy
Designers: Pneuhaus and Can-duit
Pneuhaus Design Team: Levi Bedall, Staveley Kuzmanov, August Lehrecke, Matthew Muller, Emily Shinada, and Walter Zesk
Can-duit Design Team: Aaron Hooper, Sarah Jacklin, Natan Lawson, Lars Peterson, and Paul Freedman
Client: The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA)