BIG Designs Hovering Solar Intersection for a 21st Century Stockholm

March 22nd, 2011 by Susan Kraemer

This near magical hovering design will be a new entrance portal into Stockholm. But it might as well be an entrance portal into a whole different world.

The design is a reflective hovering sphere, the winning entry in a competition proposed by the Stockholm Transport Association. It comes from the visionary engineering design firm BIG, along with Grontmij and Spacescape.

The underside of it serves a pedestrian purpose, according to Arch Daily: it mirrors a 180 degree view of a massive new multiple intersection for the drivers on their way in or out of the city where accidents have been frequent. Transportation innovation is not new to Sweden.

The top 30% of the sphere’s surface is covered with photovoltaics (presumably thin film?) always floating facing the sun. This produces enough energy to keep it floating – the way a hovercraft does – but higher – like an electric blimp? The solar on top of the gigantic mirrored sphere would produce 100% of the power it needs to stay up, and supply 235 nearby houses with electricity.

Like many countries in Europe, Sweden has been steadily working towards a twenty-first century vision of a renewable energy economy for some time, while the US seems to zig and zag with every election, increasingly bogged down in a quagmire.

It’s one thing to intellectually acknowledge the widening gulf between the US and the developed world that is leaving us behind. But it is another thing to feel it.

This design really makes me feel like a visitor from a couple of centuries behind, gazing in amazement at a futuristic society I no longer have any comprehension of. Jeez. Let’s hope we can change that.

Susan Kraemer@Twitter

Keep up to date with all the hottest cleantech news by subscribing to our (free) cleantech newsletter, or keep an eye on sector-specific news by getting our (also free) solar energy newsletter, electric vehicle newsletter, or wind energy newsletter.

Tags: BIG, Europe, Grontmij, solar photovoltaics, Solar PV, Spacescape, Stockholm, Stockholm Transport Association, Sweden

About the Author

Susan Kraemer writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times. Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.

Gregory Norminton

Um… how does it stay up at night?
- http://cleantechnica.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer
  
  Well, (just conjecture here – the google translate of architecture news runs to the verrrry vague) one way would be if the balloon thing is supplying houses, that means its grid connected, that means there must be some kind of cable to the electric wires, very scary idea as this thing is bobbing around in the sky – not stationary and safely grid-connected like a house is.
  
  If it is grid connected somehow, then juice goes both ways, ie I have solar on my own roof, on sunny days I ship excess to the grid, so that at night (and stormy days like today) I can get some of that back, and overall come out about even.
  - http://cleantechnica.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer
    
    On the other hand BIG is incredibly inventive. See this where they use lazers to make smoke rings http://www.homedesignfind.com/green/can-a-waste-to-energy-plant-display-lessons-on-saving-the-climate/
http://www.senseseven.com Garren Bisschoff

We are currently installing integrated solar powered intersection systems in Johannesburg, South Africa. I’d love any feedback you might have….
- http://cleantechnica.com/author/susan Susan Kraemer
  
  I’ll take a look but do they HOVER….?