Solar Tree by Ross Lovegrove
Solar Tree is a solar-powered street lighting systemdesigned by Ross Lovegrove for the Museum for Angewandte Kunst (MAK) in Vienna. The lighting has been engineered by Artemide in collaboration with Sharp Solar.
Update 08/10/07: see photos of the installation in our new story.
Images and the following statement courtesy of Lovegrove Studio:
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SOLAR TREE.
ROSS LOVEGROVE. LONDON
A project stimulated by the MAK in Vienna that celebrates DESIGN, NATURE AND ART. Therefore it represents the DNA of our times and the need to converge the most advanced technologies with that of the beautification of our collective environment.
The SOLAR TREES communicate more than light... they communicate the trust of placing beautifully made, complex natural forms outside for the benefit of all of society becoming a museum that if folded inside out, the museum as an incubator of change in society... and with this the promotion of environmental science and the joy of the new aesthetics made possible by the digital process.
They bring nature to the grey-ness of urban environments and optimistically lift our senses towards the future and how the physicality of all the objects that surround us will inevitably change... either through need, though enlightenment or simply just the celebration of new form in industrial art that compliments the new quest for biological forms in architecture.
Ultimately this will be a fantastic collaboration between the Worlds largest producer of Solar Cells SHARP SOLAR; ARTEMIDE an leading force in the field of lighting innovation for the past 40 years, ROSS LOVEGROVE, a visionary translator of technology for the 21st Century; The MAK in Vienna supported by the Angewante, the leading school of Architecture and Design in Vienna and then ultimately the objective is to partner with other world class art/culture cities who in turn will plant the trees in equal celebration of environmental progress in the urban condition.