Alchemy Architects, LIGHTHOUSE, Mill Ruins Park, Northern Spark 2016. Photo courtesy of Alchemy LLC.
Alchemy Architects, LIGHTHOUSE, Mill Ruins Park, Northern Spark 2016. Photo courtesy of Alchemy LLC.
lightHouse sketch. Courtesy Geoffrey Warner and Alchemy LLC.
Did you know 60% of Minnesotans live in the Twin Cities and half of their energy use is consumed by buildings? How can ART personalize and celebrate the potential for a more sustainable future?
The lightHouse is a fully functioning one-room mobile hotel that moves as the flow of the city requires, occupying places both celebrated and ignored. It uses urban ecotourism to become a beacon for sustainable living. The city itself is its lobby.
The interior is both efficient and luxe, making the most of limited space within a salvaged 8’ x 20’ shipping container. It is adorned with mechanical detritus and typographic overlays for whimsy and functional insight. An online dashboard maps the lightHouse’s location and artist itinerary, power, water, waste usage, and guests’ experiences. The dashboard will use social media to enlighten and educate the temporary lightHouse “keepers” on conservation and sustainability.
Geoffrey Warner is the founder and principal architect of Alchemy Architects, home of the weeHouse. A general impatience with business-as-usual led Warner to quit his day job as an architect in 1989 to get real, hands-on experience. Since then, he has constructed buildings, furnishings, lighting—even kiteboards—in a wide range of materials using hand, machine and CAD-based processes of art and industry that maximize the impact of modest budgets through creative construction technologies.
View more photos from lightHouse on the Northern Spark Flickr here!