The Pylon

One of the main characteristics of the contemporary urban environment is that the invisible information coexists with the visible, and in many cases the two entangle each other to form highly hybridized entities. Today’s cities are built with the innumerable accumulation of the invisible records on top of the visible information from the past. The invisible information and underlying technology has brought about both the convenience and potential threat to people and the society. In an effort to mitigate the uneasiness which people often experience when facing this sort of threat, they have sought the way to transform the invisible into more tangible ones. The Pylon functions as a medium by which people translate the unseeable entanglement of information into the palpable. The Pylon was designed to operate in various scales spanning from the micro-scale of human activities to the macro-scale of urban interactions. In the micro-scale the Pylon reacts to invisible information such as atmospheric environment, noise and wifi reception, converts it into visible signs, and share them with the citizens. The Pylon forms an urban grid in the macro scale. While the road system is a physical grid on the ground level, the Pylon functions as an invisible grid that defines the traffic system in the air. While the topmost levels of the Pylon house the essential operations, which collect and reinterpret the invisible information of the city, the bottom part is more flexible and versatile to adapt to the urban environments. The lower part functions as the structural body to support the upper parts, and at the same time is able to accommodate public programs such as toilets, community facilities, and public parking spaces.