Practicing positive human-energy relationships
Transitioning to renewable energy requires major cultural shifts around how energy is used according to variable weather patterns. This research project aims to explore new experiences that might support positive human-energy relationships. Not to solve a problem or change behaviour directly, but to open up a new way of noticing weather, and observe what naturally shifts when people live alongside it. Within this, we use the technique of "noticing," which researcher Angella Mackey describes as intentionally opening a designer's awareness to more-than-human worlds. We believe this tangible translation of energy can bring us creative insights for future energy designs.
Wind, Made Present
NW31 is a phygital research object designed to be placed in a domestic environment. It produces audio-visual patterns that represent wind speed using live wind data. As a first impression its sound and materiality might recall something familiar but its ambient presence slowly becomes not only a reminder but a fresh way of perceiving and noticing wind and weather in general.
This object is only a first step. Wind is one form of energy among many, and the same method – sensing, translating, and living alongside data – could open new relationships with other, less visible forces. What you see and hear here is wind. But what if it represented sun energy instead? The project is an invitation to keep experimenting with how weather and energy might be experienced, not just measured, by those who design for the future.
