
How is the interactive water feature presented in a music fountain?
Every day, shuttling through various urban spaces, a beautiful fountain can attract you to stop for a few seconds in a hurry; Or occasionally, you and your friends sit by the water to rest, chat, and daydream. Most of the water features in the city are like a 'wallflower lady', decorating the beauty of the world, but it's hard to connect with them.
Sometimes, some water features seem to be rejecting you. You may be blocked by railings and unable to come into contact with them, or the depth of their water makes you afraid, or the height of their spray makes you worry about getting hurt. Water, the soft element of the heart of the earth, has a fragile and distant relationship with people in modern cities.
In the article "The Works and Ideas of Louis Baraghan", Baraghan mentioned that when designing buildings, he would introduce them into a "literary" context. He "fantasized" the entire design, added storylines to the design, and attached great importance to using language to depict the entire plan.
We strongly agree with this methodology, where designers first imagine the scene and participants, with a 'script' in mind. A script typically consists of a protagonist, scenes, actions, plot, and medium.
1. The protagonist
Firstly, based on known venue data, conduct research on venue users, such as age group composition of the crowd, spatiotemporal changes in venue flow, etc., in order to establish a collective impression of the protagonists (water scene participants). And based on this, combined with the designer's experience and knowledge, extract typical protagonist images.
However, our protagonist is not only a person with a "known past" (known age, occupation, education, etc.), but also someone with a "possible future", that is, his/her expectations for the future of the venue, future life status or goals, and so on.
In this way, protagonists with a 'future' can help us break through static dimensions and dynamically understand the individuals living here.
2. Scene
Determine the scene characteristics of the story through site research and design task requirements. The setting of the script's scenes is based on the historical context of the site, people's lifestyles, and the functional characteristics of the site. It may not necessarily be a real scene, but can also be semi fictional, a metaphor for life, a continuation of culture, or the unfolding of a certain theme. The establishment of the scene allows the story to take root locally.
3. Behavior
Behavior consists of a series of conscious actions, which are based on a series of unconscious operations. Operations require operating conditions, actions require goals, and behavior is driven by motivation, which leads us to imagine the behavior of the protagonists. Based on the previously defined protagonist and scene, we begin to imagine specific behaviors:
Unconscious actions, such as sensory attraction, accidental triggering, unexpected surprises, etc; Actions with a goal, such as walking over, stopping, and trying cause and effect back and forth; From motivated behavior to understanding something, such as intentionally pressing a button to spray water, splashing others (causing trouble), etc.
The behavior of a round includes two parts: the "behavior" to be done and the corresponding "feedback". That is to say, we not only imagine the protagonist's behavior, but also imagine the possibility that the water scenery will respond based on their actions.
4. Media
The medium for achieving interaction between people and water features can be divided into input and output ends. The input and output terminals correspond to the "behavior" and "feedback" discussed in the previous section on behavior.
The input end refers to how we interact with water features, which can be divided into passive contact and active contact. The triggering device for passive contact is hidden in a corner of the space, which can bring an unexpected sense of surprise. For example, when sitting on a public seat, the ripples in the opposite pool become blurred.
Active contact is mainly indicated by obvious devices, emphasizing human active participation. Such as fingertip water whistle, water gun, bicycle water spray, button water spray, etc.