Shortlisted Project, Land Art Generator Competition

The Prism Cloud is an energy-generating landscape pavilion near Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The only requirement of the program was to design a land art piece that would create a sense of place as well as an energy infrastructure. Our project is therefore an attempt to create an experiential fullness within the empty context of the desert, by rendering the invisible visible. We wanted to call attention to atmospheric elements that might otherwise go unnoticed, such as the specific qualities of light, wind, energy and sand. The Prism Cloud thus operates on light in four specific ways: by bending light, refracting light, framing light, and shading light. Wind is made visible and audible as the steel-cable net canopy ripples and moves. At the same time, the canopy harnesses solar energy through its array of photovoltaic cells—feeding electricity back to nearby desert communities.