Context:
Role:
Duration:
Freelance designer at Rare Volume studio
UI
Four months (full-time)
In 2022, Rare Volume launched a permanent exhibit within the Torre Glories tower’s Hyperview Barcelona experience that surfaces the natural and man-made phenomena that impact the lives of Barcelonians each day. Data from the city come alive on a 40 foot, interactive wall display that complements a further exhibition on sustainability.
I joined the project as a UI designer and animator. I designed the screens for one segment of the experience visualizing flights, co2, wave activity, and other metrics of human-ocean interaction. In addition to animating my own screens, I brought the ocean surface behind it to life, delivering final animations, renders and comps of this central element.
This screen totaled the flights and ocean-going vessels entering and leaving Barcelona, asking viewers to consider the link between this activity and metrics of ocean health. I was excited about displaying a timeline to show trends over the last several years but unfortunately it wasn't possible.
This screen combines a display of historical and forecast sea level data with the current difference between sea and air temperature. Earlier iterations shown below explored other visuals for values over time and different graphic styles.
This more didactic screen juxtaposed the figures of C02 emissions and ocean pH. As atmospheric CO2 rises, the ocean absorbs more of it, changing its chemistry in way that threaten coral and other species.
The display was linked to data from buoys measuring wave agitation in Barcelona’s harbor. The ocean surface on screen needed to visualize three different levels of wave movement in response. In animation, I went through several different iterations in Cinema4d and Houdini to find three levels that felt distinct enough but still related to the type of waves that would realistically develop in Barcelona’s harbor.
The final element needed to look seamless on an existing background that Hannah Sung meticulously co-designed with our client. Motion vector, surface normal and other render passes allowed us to accomplish refraction and scattering effects in composite rather than raytracing them at our final delivery resolution of 12k x 3k.
The final rendered background encompassed a series of 10 second loops, which are dynamically sequenced by Rare Volume’s bespoke video compositing software.
