infoCUBE: light monitors

AIA/DC UNBUILT Award of Merit, DC Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, 2013

The project: a new light-rail system with stations for 24 stops along one of the main arteries of Detroit.

The challenge: to design the smallest physical component to address issues of signage, identity, and visual connectivity.

Our response: a series of light monitors that not only illuminate the city and street, but also reconnect the urban fabric.

The highly visual infoCUBE, running along Woodward Avenue, in Detroit performs as a media cube and a light monitor – punctuating the city’s urban landscape - marking place along the city’s primary north-south axis. Each of the parts (the stations) contributes equally to the whole (the system). In 1929, cities across the United States, including Detroit, were lit to celebrate fifty years of electricity. Recalling the Light’s Golden Jubilee, our design strategy offers a contemporary series of insertions to define the datum with a series of vertical translucent LED-lit glass panel skins, emphasizing the spirit of lightness in both materiality and illumination. The information cube also responds to the pragmatic programmatic requirements by housing self-service ticketing machines, an electronic route locator, an electronic flat screen display for advertising, and other pieces of information related to each specific stop.

Just as the Light’s Golden Jubilee lit the city to commemorate fifty years of electricity, the infoCUBE seeks to celebrate the power of light to connect, transform, and reveal the city.