My Projects

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  Cimbalom Circle

  Cimbalom Circle is a series of musical tiles that create impromptu orchestras out of pedestrian choreographies. Commissioned for Budapest’s House of Music, signed by architect Sou Fujimoto, the work pays tribute to Hungary’s musical legacy. At the center of the artwork is the Cimbalom, a stringed instrument invented in the capital in 1874. People walk a tune, play their own games, or dance, creating ever-evolving contemporary compositions with traditional sounds. A key attraction of Liget Park, the artwork joined the permanent collection of currently Europe’s largest urban cultural development. The artwork lives permanently in the urban architecture and opens up the magic of playing music together for all ages and backgrounds. As people play along, inhibitions are lost and spontaneous performances take place. These performances bring a sense of closeness between users and onlookers. How it works: 36 interactive light units are embedded in concrete tiles. Place your foot, wheel, hand on a unit to play a note. Tap multiple sensors to play arpeggios. Explore alone or with others – the rhythms depend on the distance between the sensors played. Music emanates from the ground as if by magic thanks to in-house tailored solid speaker tiles, developed to blend into the pavement pattern.

  2022 CODAawards Entry 2022 CODAawards Top 100 Badge

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  Daydreamer

  Can cities be built for collective daydreaming? Rocking motions have been known to induce a state of daydreaming, proven to lessen stress and anxiety, while opening up the mind to be more intuitive and imaginative at finding solutions by simply letting go for a while. Daydreamer is a new sculptural series of interactive, slowly rocking benches that compose gentle music and encourage synced up choreographies. Conceived to create a ritual around a moment of pause in the urban realm, the artwork stimulates a communal experience in a soothing soundscape. Components: Three revolving long benches host a sound and sensing system. Each bench accommodates up to four people, finished in canadian white oak, with a powder-coated aluminum arch. Interactive LED lights are integrated in the arch and under the seat to emphasize movement. When people sit on the benches, and start pushing them to rock or spin, the mechanism inside each of the bench’s pivot center ensures the motion is slow. The benches rock in four quarters, or rotate 360˚ with a bit more push from the user. Music and light animations are triggered through motion detection, merging analog and digital movements. People may sit on the bench or hold the arch from a standing position, or from a wheelchair, to make music.

  2023 CODAawards Entry

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  Duetti

  ‘Duetti: Musical Furniture’ by Daily tous les jours features two interactive urban archetypes: a bench that rocks and plays choral music, and a bollard that transforms the act of walking into dancing. Duetti is initiated by Daily tous les jours as a response to cities’ increasing anxiety, polarization and isolation, using interactivity to bring social and therapeutic insights to public furniture design. — A Rocking Bench When people sit and push the bench to rock or spin, music and light animations are triggered through motion detection. The bench’s sounds are recordings of human voices, weaving an evolutive tapestry of tension and release. An edition of the studio’s Daydreamer series, the bench uses rocking, known to induce a state of daydreaming, reducing stress and anxiety. — A Bollard The interactive bollard features integrated lights, encircled by line insets on the ground. Touching the lines—whether with a foot or a wheel—triggers its own set of voice harmonies. With increasing movement and simultaneous exploration, compositions emerge, with musical flourishes unlocked through deeper cooperation.

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  Hello Trees

  Studies have shown that trees communicate in a secret language through airborne particles and their roots. In a forest, this mysterious chatter allows them to help each other and ultimately survive. Inspired by these imperceptible channels, Hello Trees is a poetic message board allowing humans to communicate with trees. This sensory path is an invitation to look up and take-in nature. Set under a canopy of centennial oaks —a natural hidden treasure in downtown Houston— Hello Trees is a series of luminous arches linked to listening stations. At each end of the pathway, microphones allow strollers to send messages to the trees. Once recorded, these voices start a slow journey through the arches and progressively turn into music. Following one’s voice along the path requires slowing down and looking up towards the sky. While admiring the beautiful foliage, passersby are transported by the soundscape – a concerto of voices and soothing melodies. Taking advantage of the universal language of music, Hello Trees is a tribute to the city’s commitment to civic engagement and to the diversity of Houston’s inhabitants.

  2020-project

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  Hello, Hello

  ‘Hello, Hello’ is a poetic messaging system inside a luminescent arch inviting passersby to greet each other through music and light in Cambridge, Canada. A five-storey arch and reflective façade overlooking the Grand River’s banks, Hello, Hello turns people’s voices into a lyrical spectacle, marking the entrance of a new district revitalizing the edge of Cambridge’s downtown. Passersby are invited to deliver a greeting or message at one of the three mic stations arrayed at the arch’s base—to their friends, a stranger, the city, or the river. (“Hello River, how are you?”) Voices travel up the arch in shafts of colour, transforming into music and light. Voices intermingle to create singular harmonic moments, while the wave-sculpted façade reflects the constantly evolving scene before it. Hello, Hello is an interactive installation that fosters collective expression and collaboration between participants. This intervention is designed to bring strangers together in a spirit of play and cooperation, no matter their age, ability or the language they speak. Hello, Hello is one of two Daily tous les jours pieces commissioned for the Gaslight District, as part of the developers’ vision of creating “Joy Experiments”—public realm interventions fostering community through play.

  2024 CODAawards Top 100

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  Mesa Musical Shadows

  Musical Shadows is an interactive pavement that reacts to the shadows of passersby by playing sounds of singing voices. The piece was created for the Mesa Arts Centre, Arizona, known to be the sunniest state. Custom tiles in the pavement play singing voices when shadows are cast upon them. As visitors together explore different soundscapes with their shadows, they become part of a collective sound and body performance. This new scenario for public space engages strangers to bump up against one another and share a moment of magic igniting in them a sense of what is possible together. As the sun moves throughout the day, shadows stretch and transform, altering their orientation and intensity. Three interactive soundscapes were developed for the artwork: one for the long shadows at sunrise and sunset, another for the short shadows at midday, and a third for the nighttime shadows created by surrounding artificial ambient lights.

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  Musical Swings

  Inspired by the popular 21 Balançoires (21 Swings) installation, The Swings: An Exercise in Musical Cooperation is a standalone musical installation available for international touring. The interactive installation consists of a series of musical swings. When used all together, the swings compose a musical piece in which certain melodies emerge only through cooperation. It’s a game where from the start you need to adjust to the actions of others.

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  River Lines

  Orchestral maneuvers in the square—an interactive pavement turns a new public plaza into the stage for one big impromptu musical ensemble. Anchoring the publicly accessible courtyard of the district, a wave-patterned interactive pavement, embedded with 62 light rings and sensors, along with 12 custom audio tiles, becomes an exercise in musical collaboration. With different instrument sections assigned to positions across the pavement’s surface, players connect the dots to create arpeggiated clusters of notes that harmonize along with the playing of others to create one rich tapestry of music. The axis running diagonally across the pavement represents the high-water mark of the 1974 flood, a historical moment of city-wide collaboration. A special soundtrack is created around this axis and played every hour, underscoring our dependence on the natural world with a moment of magical synchronicity that results from the players’ cooperative efforts. A large screen overlooking River Lines plots the players’ movements on an animated map for everyone watching. River Lines is one of two Daily tous les jours pieces commissioned for the Gaslight District, as part of the developers’ vision of creating “Joy Experiments”—public realm interventions designed to foster community through play.

  2024 CODAawards Top 100

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  Shade Parade

  Cities designed primarily for cars have many endless and shadeless sidewalks unfavorable or hostile to pedestrians. This has repercussions not only on mobility, but on equity and wellbeing. Shade Parade prototypes a very slow means of public transportation inviting passersby to glide oversized parasols along a rail to negotiate and gather in delightful ways. Hot, monotonous sidewalks are transformed into opportunities for play and collaboration, in this inspirational provocation to boost cities’ walkability. Take a parasol for a stroll, scoot on its base, walk or roll beside it. You may share the shade or exchange it at the end of your course with a fellow traveler coming the other way. Glide your way to work, enjoy the scenery and meet someone new. The parasols are quite slow no matter what. It isn’t about speed or efficiency, just the simple pleasures of moving together, and sharing comfort. You may notice that it is very hard to be angry, stressed, or sad, when gliding on a giant parasol.

  2022 CODAawards Entry

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  The Pearl Divers

  An interactive pavement brings to life an ancient pearl diving tradition through shadow play and music. Walk a tune, alone or together, dance if affinity. In the warmest areas of the world, the sun sets the pace of life. Musical Shadows: The Pearl Divers is an interactive pavement that reclaims sunny public spaces to explore possibilities of urban vitality whatever the climate. The work brings a new dimension to the plaza, stimulating the emergence of new gathering habits and opportunities for people to play music together. The work is a digital creation that works day and night, and is seamlessly integrated in the urban infrastructure. By moving their shadows on the tiles, passersby trigger musical notes as if by magic. Dawn or dusk, different melodies are heard as the movement of the sun transforms and stretches shadows throughout the day.

  2021 CODAawards Entry

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  Walk Walk Dance

  Make music with your feet, 6 feet apart. Created during the pandemic, for the post-covid city, Walk Walk Dance is an interactive pathway of lines that trigger different musical patterns, transforming the act of walking (or waiting in line) into a collaborative performance. Play with physical distancing rules, one, two, three steps at a time. Because every city needs a dance strategy. DESCRIPTION A pathway invites pedestrians to make music with their feet, 6 feet apart. Sets of lines trigger different musical partitions, transforming the act of walking (or waiting in line) into a collaborative performance. All the equipment is enclosed in a chain of boxes and planters, adapting to any street slope, weighted down with local plants. Lines are simply drawn, painted or taped, not containing any technology. Their color represents different sets of instruments and invites people to move with the music they trigger. They can also be designed to encourage different types of circulation. Step on a single line and trigger notes that play either: -once, stimulating moving, traversing, re-triggering; -on a loop, encouraging stopping, keeping one foot on a line.

  2021 CODAawards Entry 2022 CODAawards Entry