The Heart
Can a building have a heart? Does a building feel and can it dream? Imagine if the life of Melbourne Connect (MC) as a building and a community could be revealed through the collection and visualisation of computational data. We are creating a major permanent digital artwork called ‘The Heart’ for the foyer of MC that visualises what the building is ‘feeling’ through its thousands of live data gathering sensors.
The Heart will beat for the duration of the building’s life – at least 42 years until the end of the current lease. Its pulse is extrapolated from the sensations of its body: the ‘smartest’ building in Parkville. The project is well underway and is being developed through the collaboration of a broad coalition of university researchers, professional staff from FFAM and MSE, students, leading external craftspeople, and the MC architects and builders.
The artwork reveals building functions that are normally hidden ‘offstage’ to bring to mind the volume of data and work supporting the life and optimal functioning of the University community. The pulse of MC is derived from:
- Building Management System data combined with electricity generation (solar and geothermal)
- external temperature and wind direction
- zoned data and power usage
- human movement and behaviour.
We envision MDAP helping us complete the data pipeline for the project, using Machine Learning/AI to extrapolate an evolving, live ‘pulse’ from realtime building data including human heart rate monitors in the foyer.
Launch of The Heart in April 2023
