Hi Mike -----Original Message----- Manchester wants to wash away its image as a rainy city - by creating a network of giant sundials. The dials would stretch through the city centre linking Salford Quays and the City of Manchester stadium. An exhibition of the sundials plans is due to open on Saturday at the city's Urbis museum Mike Shaw ------
to quote from the Urbis website... " Heliodays in the Rainy City : 10th January 2003 Saturday 11 January Sunday 23 February Heliodays is a series of designs for solar chronographs sun dials, by a hip collection of young Mancunian architectural practices, architects and environmental artists. They have been designed for Manchesters Archi-trek, an architectural walk promoting new architecture around the city. Inspired by place-related propositions, each solar chronograph varies in scale, technology and form. Curated by Greg Keeffe, Manchester School of Architecture " www.urbis.org.uk www.archi-trek.com I had a bit of time in Manchester yesterday so managed to drop in on this exhibition. Sadly not enough time to do justice to all the diverse designs and frankly not enough time to work out how you were even supposed to read the time on some! but heres a bit of a potted summary. The sites are 1 Lowry centre A "equatorial like" dial based on a "candyfloss ride" at a theme park. It looks like a raised walkway but I couldn't see a hour scale. "The pattern of migration generated on the sundial becomes its time reading" . Needed a bit more explanation as I can't see people managing to walk around an equatorial disk at the latitude of Manchester 2 MUFC A digital-type sundial as a large vertical billboard nr Old Trafford. The "theory" diagram showed a 3 layer projection system. Only "Noon" was shown on the display so I didn't fully get whether it was or wasn't going to show digits 3 Pomona Docks In the dock would float 12 horizontal dials (tethered). The surfaces of each dial would be made of segmented solar panels. The output of these panels is connected to large sunflowers on the bank which open and close according to the time. Time is calculated from which of the segment of solar panel is in the shade. 4 Cornbrook A bit on the confusing side: a sundial based on an "entropy surface". Cornbrook is a station on the Manchester tram system but is a high level "interchange only" station with no street access. The point of this sundial is to provide something which connects the "walkers" walking past on the canal bank with the "trammers" on the platform. The dial itself is a large swooping thing from next to the platform to down by the path where it has some seats built in. There were plenty of slats designed to produce light/shadow at 5 and 12 minute intervals (the frequency of the tram services on the 2 lines). I didn't get the half of this frankly 5 Box Works/Castlefield Bridge A metal quarter-sphere. The outer surface is pierced by tubes all angled towards the centre where they all point towards a glass sphere. The sphere lights up on 10 instances during the year (maybe more on the real thing) for commemorating special events. You can write your suggestions of special events (date and time) for possible inclusion in the real dial 6 Castlefield Bridge An "Optical Solar Machine" This is a reflecting dial combined with a fibre optic dial all contained in a nice clean white stone block. The ends of the fibre for each hour are arranged in 3 rows (winter, summer and spring/autumn). Looks very elegant 7 Bridgewater Hall A column with 3 dials (for different seasons) on it. Each dial consisted of 3 parallel square plates with a square hole going through all 3. There were plenty of gears but no great explanation of what was going on 8 Spinningfields A collection of 6 analemmas laid into the pavement as hour marks. 4 would be human scale, stand on one point and the hour mark is an analemma in front of you. The 09:00 would be the same but using the shadow of the corner of an existing building to get a bigger effect. The 12:00 would be 2 very tall (? 100ft) columns the shadows of which match with 2 parallel lines on the ground. The top of the columns would be pierced to project "12:00" onto the ground (although I thought the 3D CAD views seemed to show these as rather unrealistically sharp edged) Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to CAD all the buildings and there are a couple of time-lapse movies of how the shadows of the buildings move. 9 Shude Hill/High Street A large tower with "Solar Sails": lots of design comments about it not shading nearby buildings or being shaded by them but not about the time telling aspects 10 High St/Church St 11 Oldham St/Piccadilly A largeish rectangular stone slab. It rotates so that it always has the thin side facing the sun , so casts a the same width shadow. It also raises and lowers out of the pavement according to the seasons so that the length of shadow always ends on a outer circle. 12 Mosley St A "freestanding multimedia" dial that shows a picture of the earth rotating from the point of view of the sun. There's also a plan to include a live webcam links from sundials all around the world. 13 Ducie St A collection of tents covering a public square with plenty of seating. Each tent (12 total) has a open top leading to a narrow neck opening out to the area below. The 12 holes are aligned to let a shaft of light below for each hour 14 Pollard St/Ancoats St 15 16 Near the Commonwealth Stadium 2 dials on opposite side of the road. On one side a row of 8 polar dials in a long row calibrated for different cities. The road runs conveniently East-West Thought had gone into make the scale tall enough so they are not overshadowed by passing buses but big enough that people waiting can read them. The most conventional of all dials. On the other side would be a row of bus shelters done as "LEDs and light boxes" The top of the structure is solar panels, each shelter has a LED clock power from it. Where any shadow casting comes in was not explained. If this can go ahead it will catapult Manchester up the league of places with interesting dials. I could spend several more hours looking at some of the wackier dials so see if there are more clues as to how they work. If anyone else cares to visit this exhibition directions to Urbis are at.. http://www.urbis.org.uk/visitor.asp?page=9 Ian Maddocks Altrincham, nr Manchester, GB PS Earlier in this thread I made some comments about a rainy part of Canada. Yes before I get lynched by Roger and the Banff tourist board I can confirm that the rainy place I was thinking of was high on a mountain pass more towards Vancouver on the coast. Banff and Jasper and the Icefield Parkway were nice and sunny when I visited , indeed a positive 'click-fest' if you like landscape photos with alpine meadows and snowy topped mountains. -
