Den Blaa Silo

Østre Havn in the city of Aalborg is a former industrial harbour area being transformed into an urban residential neighbourhood. Some historical traces remain as buildings are converted from industry into living spaces, however, some structures remain as they are both in shape and function. The Blue Silo is such a structure. It is a 34m tall accumulation tank heating enormous volumes of district heating water with excess energy. When the demand for heating is high the water in the tank will kick in working as an “extra battery”.

As the area is transformed and the city is evolving around the silo, Aalborg Forsyning, the utility company of Northern Jutland wanted to update the expression of the massive tank. After a process investigating new cladding and illuminating the silo in different ways the project ended up at a concept mounting seven rings of light around the 100m circumference vertically spaced by 4.5m.
Aalborg Forsyning asked Kollision to design a dynamic light expression that could ambiently communicate the real time production of energy and visualise the relation with and amount of renewable energy. The ambient story of energy production can e.g. be visualised by each of the seven rings representing a day of the week displaying which of the previous seven days was the most and least energy intense as well as the relation between renewable and other energy sources.
Furthermore the installation can be used for special events and celebrations.

Kollision designed the layout of the seven light rings containing 544 SGM VPL light fixtures, mapped all LEDs in 3D space, integrated with real time data from the utility company and developed all content for the installation using MAP.