Solar energy collectors can also be art. That was the thinking behind the Land Art Generator Initiative, a contest to create public art installations that double as full-scale clean energy generators.
First place for design went to “Lunar Cubit,” proposed by a designer team lead by Robert Flottemesch, an artist working with renewable energy and a senior engineer at Hudson Valley Clean Energy, in New York.
Lunar Cubit consists of a large central pyramid surrounded by eight smaller ones that all collect solar energy during the day and illuminate themselves at night in combinations corresponding to the cycles of the moon. The designers envision Lunar Cubit as a landmark — situated just outside the world’s first “zero-carbon” metropolis, Masdar City in the United Arab Emirates — as recognizable as Big Ben or the Empire State Building.
