The Long Now — Sean Lally Architecture

Exhibit Columbus: 2019 University Design Research Fellows

Sean Lally & Matthew Wizinsky

(Rachel Birdsell, Jacqueline Buckley, Isabelle Reford, Bethany Paulsen, Sike Rong)

Augmented Reality Consultant and Developer: Adetokunbo Ayoade

‘The Long Now’ is an overlay of two experiences (one physical and one digital). The first is climatic as the space is tuned to current norms of body and nature and the second, a glimpse into a plausible yet unfamiliar version of this world. ‘The Long Now’ questions our preconceptions and established norms that define our evolving planet, reorienting our place and perspectives.

Concepts of environment and body are moments within a much larger arch of time. Flush against the ground, the project is tuned through heat and light to meet the needs of our bodies and vegetation that occupy the space. The full spectrum lights offset the decrease in nourishing sunlight to our bodies in fall and winter months while heating the soil extends the growing season of the grasses used by the public for gathering. This ‘Long Now’ extends an ideal condition of environmental qualities of light and temperature best suited for current human health and comfort.

^{The augmented reality overlays can by experienced by anyone with a phone or ipad.
Photograph by Hadley Fruits}

^{The Long Now}

Through the use of augmented reality, ‘The Long Now’ also extends the bandwidth of what our environment has been in the past and might look like in the future. Above the ground plane are visual representations of local climate data over the past century and spectra of light particles shifting between the near ultraviolet or near infrared due to changes in solar radiation and the Earth’s atmosphere. Speculative plant life below, among the green grass, in response to these changing spectrum’s of light and atmosphere giving us unfamiliar plant growth and colors. ‘The Long Now’ presents an experiential slice of an earth unfamiliar, though entirely feasible based on past and possible future environmental conditions.

^{The augmented reality overlay allows the public to interact with the vegetation and learn more about potential futures of climate and vegetation. Each of these AR overlays are easily updatable for continued experimentation.}

^{Video – Vegetation}

^{The elastic ‘nubs’ embedded in the grass are lit from below, changing color to match the augmented reality lights above. This ‘Digital shadow’ connects the non VR users to the experience around them.}

^{Animated light particles above shift into the far infrared spectrum informing the plant life below in augmented reality.}

^{Video- What is everyone looking at?’}

The project collapses these contradictory yet plausible perspectives of environment and body to reorient our assumptions and norms which today often include the environmental management of stasis. We instead exist in a very ‘Long Now’.