2024 - Point of light in the dark: An unexpected refuge

Point of light that provides shelter to lost travelers or travelers on extended trips, especially in remote and rainy areas around the world offering a place of protection against adverse weather. It is a refuge in nature during the day and at night a point of light that protects from the outside but at the same time allows a close connection with nature due to its transparency. It immerses people in a dynamic experience of silhouettes and movement from the water, allowing the immersion of people in the place. The refuge seeks to be an easily recognizable and accessible space, offering lighting, electricity, and drinking water to satisfy the basic needs of people who require it and at the same time protecting from cold and rainy climates. The interior of the refuge shows how the rainwater descends through the rain vortex, which captures the water and channels it in the lower part of the shelter, allowing the operation of turbines through the flow of water, generating kinetic energy from the movement. This energy is stored in batteries, which provide lighting from the center of the place and electricity. There are two turbines where the water flows and is returned to nature and two more areas where the water is captured and filtered to make it drinkable. This entire system together with its transparent materiality generates a space suitable to protect the user and not lose the essence of the place where the shelter is located.

Intelligent Navigation
Equipped with advanced sensor technology, these smart-detection sensors guide the structure along optimal cleaning paths, ensuring comprehensive coverage while avoiding any potential disturbances to people or animals.

Impact on User Experience

• Educational and Demonstrative Value: The pavilion serves as a living demonstration of how daylight can be harnessed for both energy production and architectural design, educating the public on sustainable practices.
• Environmental Stewardship: By actively removing trash and marine litter, the pavilion promotes environmental conservation and sustainable beach management.
• User Comfort and Convenience: The pavilion provides essential shading, creating comfortable and protected areas for beachgoers.
• Aesthetic Dynamism: The changing configuration of the panels offers a dynamic visual experience, celebrating the light and shadow and highlighting the passage of time.

Keeping in mind that we needed a currently unnoticed but accessible location, the intervention takes place on a public
transport station, as public transportation is one of the most chosen ways to move around cities in Latin America. In fact,
around 1.600.000 people travel by metropolitan train every year in Argentina. As the Latin America and Caribbean
Development Bank stated, it is crucial to transform and upgrade public transportation, in order to achieve efficient, clean,
equitable cities.
Once we found our mission, we wondered if light was always there in order to enhance something else, and how could light
become the moment? In which way could we silence everything that surrounds it?
The idea is to “store sunlight in a box” and deliver a moment of light to everyone who finds it. Contemplating the site
position options, our priority is to emulate a journey by leaving the urban scenario, finding something atypical in an
unnoticed place.
In order to continue the urban landscape and create the suspense and silence we seek for, the pavilion takes place
underground. The roof becomes a platform on the ground level that functions both inwards and outwards, since it lets
sunlight in during daytime and projects artificial light out during nighttime. Light is in both manners within reach of a hand