FLARE is a pneumatic building facade system. The FLARE system consists of a number of tiltable metal flake bodies. An infinite array of flakes can be mounted on any building or wall surface in a modular system of multiplied 4x4 FLARE units. Each stainless steel flake reflects the bright sky or sunlight when in vertical standby position. When the flake is tilted downwards by a computer controlled pneumatic piston, its face is shaded from the sky light and this way appears as a dark pixel. By reflecting ambient or direct sunlight the individual flakes of the FLARE system act like pixels formed by natural light. The system is controlled by a computer to form any kind of surface animation. Sensor systems inside and outside the building communicate the buildings activity directly to the FLARE system which acts as the buildings lateral line. FLARE turns the building facade into a penetrable membrane, breaking with all conventions of the building surface as a static skin.


In 2002, Ned Kahn worked with the staff of Technorama, the major science center in Switzerland, and their architects, Durig and Rami, to create a facade for the building which is composed of thousands of aluminum panels that move in the air currents and reveal the complex patterns of turbulence in the wind.


FIBER WAVE rustles with the wind and glows with the energy of the sun.
It is environmental art which needs no energy.
One can feel the wind, but cannot see it.
It is when we see the movement of something that we become aware of the wind.
FIBER WAVE is just such a device for making the invisible wind visible.

Articulated cloud
Composed of thousands of translucent, white plastic squares that move in the wind, the artwork is intended to suggest that the building has been enveloped by a digitized cloud.