puzzle facade turns architecture into a playable rubik's cube

puzzle façade turns architecture into a playable rubik’s cube
all images courtesy of javier lloret

‘puzzle façade’, by spanish artist and designer javier lloret, brings the experience of solving a rubik’s cube to the urban space. the project transforms the façade of the ars electronic building in austria, into a interactive, vibrantly-colored cube, changing chroma based on cooperation with the public. passers-by are invited to engage with a hand-held, 3D-printed interface-cube, which packs electronic components at its core that keep track of rotation and orientation. collected data is sent via bluetooth to a computer that runs a software, which coverts the information into light and color that projects onto to the exterior of the structure, allowing the architecture to turn into a playable rubik’s cube. since the user is only able to see two sides of the edifice at one time, the difficulty factor increases, but as the player is able to rotate and flip the interface-cube, it does not limit the game.

ars electronica’s media facade converted into a playable rubick’s cube

the surroundings of the building

a player using the interface-cube to light up the building

player and interface-cube interact

the cube and its electronic core

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.