Light Color Sound: Sensory Effects in Contemporary Architecture

Showcases an array of contemporary buildings that glitter, glow, and resound thanks to advanced technologies.

Light, color, and sound are the three elements capable of generating great sensory impact, transforming buildings into veritable mechanisms of interaction with their context and the passers-by, and this book puts these effects center-stage, covering the conceptual, aesthetic and technical implications of their application and integration into the structures. It focuses on thirty projects around the world in which sensory effects are the central theme.

American projects include: the 42nd Street Studio and The Reece School in New York; in Washington DC, Low Rez/Hi Fi, an interactive installation designed to renovate the foyer of a building at 1110 Vermont Avenue, made up of glass display cases with an LED (Low Rez) matrix and a grid of posts sensitive to the touch (Hi Fi). Each element follows the movement of passersby to program sound and lighting in real time; and Steven Holl Architects’ Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. Other projects come from Latin America and Montreal, and overseas from Taiwan and Beijing to Europe. A resource and reference for practicing architects and designers, who want to incorporate such effects in their work, the book describes the formal language of each design, its role in the configuration of the contemporary landscape, and its technical features. With 236 color photographs and plans, this gorgeous book will both inform and delight.

236 color photographs

Alejandro Bahamón, an architect, photographer, and editor of architecture books, is the author of numerous publications on contemporary architecture, including Sketch Plan Build, The Magic of Tents, Treehouses, Glass Houses, Houses on the Edge, and (with Ana María Álvarez), Light Color Sound. He lives in Barcelona.

Architect Ana María Álvarez lives in Barcelona, Spain.