Smartslab

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Smartslab is an LED technology. Since the late 1990s, the separation between digital media and physical space may be considered increasingly blurred in architecture and the built environment. Many architects and designers are noted for exploring the use of multimedia and augmented spaces. Pioneers of this approach include Diller and Scofidio, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaus, and Herzog and De Meuron.

Examples of technology to date that can be used for largescale multimedia projects includes: plasma, LCD, and projection systems. New systems are emerging to enable more effective implementation of these ideas and one of these is considered to be Smartslab. This was invented by professor Tom Barker, in 1999 while he was working on London's Millennium Dome with the avante garde architect Zaha Hadid. Tom has noted that a key problem with the Dome was achieving largescale video displays in high ambient light. The Smartslab technology uses structural composite honeycomb so that it is possible for displays to be integrated into architecture, as well as a hexagonal pixel, or hexel (as opposed to the square pixel).

The hexel is based on the optics of the fly's compound eye - thought to be nature's most efficient optical system. The light source is based on light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, which are diffused to allow close viewing. As a result, the system can be used on floors and ceilings as well as walls.

[edit] References

Engineering Magazine, July/August 2005, p60-61
The Times Newspaper, 13 May 2003, T2 P21
Blueprint Magazine, April 2002, P2

SmartSlab digital surface	The hexagonal compound eye is nature's most efficient optical system	SmartSlab assembly of LEDs, honeycomb and polycarbonate surface	Structural aluminium honeycomb
Early diffusion experiments with colour LEDs	1.2x1.2 metre media panels in packing crates