Cloudscapes, Architektur Biennale

Venedig, Italy

Photo © Tetsuo Kondo

Art + Installation + Exhibition

Engineers: Transsolar KlimaEngineering

Location: Venedig, Italy
Year: 2010

Transsolar + Tetsuo Kondo

Transsolar installation “cloudscapes“ designed in cooperation with Tetsuo Kondo was a walkable cloud visualizing climate engineering.

Creating a cloud under laboratory conditions is one thing - to do the same in the historic, seven hundred year old Corderie del Arsenale, is quite another. The 900 m² installation space was isolated from the remaining exhibition and the outside to maintain stable micro-climatic conditions.
Without penetrating the protected building, a fine stretched fabric ceiling extended continuously over the open area to the loft, swinging doors to the adjacent exhibition rooms prevented the air from leaving.

A false wall hid a set of heat pumps and fans, driving 30,000 m³ of air per hour connected with flexible ducts. Thermal energy was extracted from the air, cooling the lowest air layer, and transferred to warm air induced into the top layer. Due to this, only a fraction of heating and cooling energy is consumed in form of electricity.