Electronics

UrbanTile window blind concept fuses solar panel with an OLED screen

UrbanTile window blind concept fuses solar panel with an OLED screen
UrbanTiles making a dramatic effect on a city's landscape
UrbanTiles making a dramatic effect on a city's landscape
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Exploded view drawing of an UrbanTile
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Exploded view drawing of an UrbanTile
A bank of UrbanTiles create a window blind
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A bank of UrbanTiles create a window blind
UrbanTiles making a dramatic effect on a city's landscape
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UrbanTiles making a dramatic effect on a city's landscape
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Each and every day, the sun showers our cities in solar energy. Every night, our cities emit light so bright that they can be seen from space. An industrial designer from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, Israel, has designed a concept device called the UrbanTile that would harness the solar energy city buildings absorb during the day for their lighting needs at night. The UrbanTile is a small solar panel that can be flipped to reveal a light emitting screen. Banded together into rows, the panels become a window blind that forms a light and entertainment display.

The panels would made from aluminum and stainless steel with an OLED screen on one side and a photovoltaic panel on the other. Incorporating electrical motors to move them, they could be programmed to turn automatically at different times of the day. Designed to be mounted into windows, the panels could be turned to rest at various angles allowing light in during the day whilst absorbing solar energy. In the evening, the OLED screens would be turned to face indoors to light up rooms and also provide a bank of screens for media playback. At night, the light emitting side could also be turned outwards to produce patterns of light on the sides of buildings.

Exploded view drawing of an UrbanTile
Exploded view drawing of an UrbanTile

The thinness and brightness of OLED screens, along with their low power consumption and brilliant color reproduction would make them a good fit for this kind of display technology. The video below shows examples of how large scale uses of the UrbanTile on the sides of buildings might look. The servo motors turn the panels into different formations like a fluid canvas of light. Other uses would be for the display of messages, images and video for advertising purposes.

UrbanTile is the graduation project of Meidad Marzan for his course in the Industrial Design Dept. at Bezalel Academy of Art & Design in Jerusalem..

UrbanTiles by Meidad Marzan

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3 comments
3 comments
Richardf
Yeah it seems like these days everyone is just adding solar power to common sense objects that will always be in direct sun light.As an amatur inventor not yet know ,,yet,, i used to think i was being smart jumping up with these ideas solar power satlite dishes etc,i mean car is an object in direct sunlight all day as are u and me.How long before u and me are wearing solar powered stuff.If u ask me its not true invention
Ed
Look...If hackers can hack these: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,484326,00.html it\'s only a matter of time before they will be able to hack these blinds! Imaging our city scapes with massive billboards advertising spam, p3nis pills or other obscenities! Yeah! That would be fun!
Facebook User
Ed: Those signs almost always have the same default password, and the control box is built into the sign. Literally all you have to do to \"hack\" it, is open it the unlocked bottom half of the sign, and put in the password that\'s printed right there, and you can make it say whatever you like.
That\'s like saying picking up someone else\'s cell phone and dialing a number is the same thing as breaking into a phone company switchboard and rerouting all the calls to phone sex lines.