gimmick shelter
Just some images from an interesting architectural application of solar cells.
During the last days the temperature in Berlin was above 30 degrees Celsius and so the overall need to look for coolants made it easy to provide salient features. Consequently the tabloids published the usual photographs of people jumping into swimming pools, the radio stations talked about ice ages and so on. Likewise my attention was drawn to this interesting tram shelter. (see image above)
Since -what may look on the first sight like a collection of chocolate bars on the roof of the shelter is actually an array of solar cells which feed an infopoint inside the shelter. (see below images)
So this arrangement not only transforms part of the sunlight into electrical currency, but incidentally provides shadow!
I don’t know if it was an intended additional überfeature that the shadow of the solar array casts the logo of the sponsor (who is as a matter of fact currently one of the major competitors of JCDeceaux here in Berlin) onto everything underneath the shelter.
However -what may appear as a very very efficient way of advertizing- becomes less efficient in view of the fact that finding a way at the e-info screen may become highly irritating (see below images).
