Sustainably Interactive

In December last year, the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) announced the target that all homes should be supplied with smart meters by their energy suppliers by the end of 2020. The aim of this is to enable households and energy companies to explicitly understand domestic energy consumption. Such metering technologies are progressing fast and beginning to become more common place. They are rapidly enabling the more ‘intelligent’ design of our environment. 

The advancement of responsive and interactive control systems and designs for lighting offer huge potential in terms of providing mechanisms to meter and monitor energy use. They also provide a means of creating sophisticated and sensitive lit environments that can reflect complex multi-dimensional design requirements.
Jason Bruges Studio (JBS) has been designing interactive art based light installations since 2002, when Jason Bruges launched the company after having worked for a year as a sole practitioner.

It was during his architectural training that Jason first started to design interactive installations, but immediately after graduating he went to work for architectural and design practices such as Foster and Partners Ltd and Imagination before moving back to his passion.
Jason has always been interested in the synergy between design, technology and sustainability and thinks that sustainability should be embedded in all designs as a matter of principle rather than added as extra ‘bling’. He views the role of intelligent or interactive design as adding a further or fourth dimension or texture which provides a ‘catalyst’ that enables more sustainable ways of working. Jason believes that the simple view of interactive design could be “essentially turning things on and off and optimising performance system feedback”.
This level of control has the capacity to increase design efficiency and aid maintenance regimes. It can also help with the realisation of a more durable design product which is key to the JBS design ethos.
Apart from working with sustainability as an implicit part of their design criteria, JBS has worked on many projects that reflect wider sustainability issues. One of the earliest projects to reflect these principles was the design of an installation which graphically and visually shows the performance of one of UK green wind energy supplier Ecotricity’s wind turbines in Havering. This project, Litmus, is situated on the A13 in Rainham and was commissioned by the London Borough of Havering as part of a large regeneration scheme in 2005. This project uses four landmark sculptures that work like “giant litmus papers to respond to a variety of environmental stimuli” such as car numbers, light levels, tidal levels, and the energy produced by the wind turbine. These stimuli are then digitally demonstrated using light signage integral to the sculptures.

Another similar project is ‘Power-up’ at Dagenham Dock that was commissioned by utility company Scottish and Southern in conjunction with the London Development Agency and the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham in 2005. This installation uses an interactive lighting display to dynamically show the peaks and troughs in electricity use from a sub-station, thus acting as a beacon demonstrating the fluctuations in supply of energy in that area.

JBS projects that are linked to more holistic sustainability issues have been produced for NGOs Amnesty International, Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

The Light Garden project which formed part of the 100% Design show in 2007 used compact fluorescent lamps as a controlled medium. ‘This installation was part of Greenpeace’s campaign to champion efficient lighting and replace incandescent light bulbs’.

Currently installed at the Design Museum in Shad Thames in London, as part of the ‘The Brit Insurance Designs Awards 2010’ exhibition, which runs until 31st October 2010, is Panda Eyes which was commissioned by the WWF. This uses an array of one hundred of the charities emblematic panda collection boxes as part of an interactive installation. The aim of this installation is to help raise awareness for climate change and promote the work of the WWF, it also “demonstrates the keen support Jason Bruges Studio shows to the work and intentions of the WWF, specifically in relation to environmental sciences and technological innovation”.

www.jasonbruges.com