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Office for Usable Thinking
Breath
Competition 2022
Authors: Francesco Nardacci, Alessandro Minotti
Achievements: Finalist
Images: Francesco Nardacci

Breath is a dynamic installation that wants to dominate the scene of Saint Juame and Saint Maties courtyard expressing the rhythm in the natural form of the breath of every living being. The project was conceived as a Living Architecture, a sphere of 8 meters in diameter that swells and deflates at regular rhythms in order to evoke the breath and then mark a rhythm. The spherical shape was born from the study of the sound of breath from the musical point of view. Musically the rhythm has a circular/concentric shape; so by making design options we understood that the sphere was what we needed to achieve our design goal. The sphere will fit perfectly barycentric with respect to the court trying to emphasize also the presence of the well, to which it will be anchored, and that it will be dominated by the big sphere. The concept of rhythm throughout the court will be amplified, with the presence of sound thanks to some speakers that will reproduce the living being breath. We imagine that visitors can have in 360 degree sensory experience, where their imagination is stimulated. Thanks to the view of the ball out of scale in motion and the sound of the breath in the background you can immerse yourself in any place of the soul. From the ground floor of the court you can admire the installation from below where you will have the feeling of a floating sphere on nothing; from the porch of the first floor you can face the sphere, while from the top floor you will have an additional point of view where it will seem almost like walking on a cloud seeing the large sphere from a higher position than it.