This Might Be the Coolest Kite Ever

ORIGINAL: Wired

BY LIZ STINSON

08.23.13

Tomás Saraceno's Solar Bell is a massive kite made from carbon tubes and paper-thin solar panels. Image: Camilo Brau, © Studio Tomás Saraceno

The Solar Bell about to take flight. Image: Camilo Brau, © Studio Tomás Saraceno.

The structure was designed by Saraceno with the help of the Aerospace Engineering Faculty at Delft University in the Netherlands. Image: Camilo Brau, © Studio Tomás Saraceno.

Much like scientists in the 19th century, Saraceno and his team had to experiment to get the right frame structure and angle of the solar panels. Image: Camilo Brau, © Studio Tomás Saraceno.

Engineers worked to find the most lightweight materials possible to ensure that the structure would float into the air easily. Image: Camilo Brau, © Studio Tomás Saraceno.

The Solar Bell stands 5 meters tall, but Saraceno imagines that it could some day rise as high as 60 meters. Image: Camilo Brau, © Studio Tomás Saraceno.

A rendering of the full-sized Solar Bell, which would rise 60 meters high. Image: Camilo Brau, © Studio Tomás Saraceno.

The team constructing the Solar Bell. Image: Camilo Brau, © Studio Tomás Saraceno.

The Solar Bell in flight. Image: Camilo Brau, © Studio Tomás Saraceno.

Testing the Solar Bell. Image: Camilo Brau, © Studio Tomás Saraceno.

Left up to Tomás Saraceno, the buildings of the future might look a lot like kites. Not just any kite, either. In his most recent work, the Argentinian artist re-imagines buildings as massive, shimmering pyramids that would lift off land and float in the air on a windy day. Commissioned to accompany the Maasvlakte 2 expansion of Rotterdam’s port, Saraceno’s Solar Bell sculpture is a fantastical look at what could be possible if air replaced land as the basis for future architecture.

It was inspired by a flying machine designed by Alexander Graham Bell.

Despite its futuristic aesthetic, the Solar Bell was actually inspired by a century-old flying machine designed by Alexander Graham Bell. You probably know Bell as the man who invented the telephone, but he was actually quite active in the early days of aviation when engineers were exploring how to make manned flight a reality. Bell’s tetrahedron-shaped kite concept looked to maximize surface area and minimize weight through the use of light, pyramid-shaped sails. The idea was to make a machine capable of carrying a man and a motor into flight, and though he did achieve that, Bell’s kite ultimately failed to inspire the future of manned flight.

Saraceno’s structure retains Bell’s general frame construction but updates it with modern technology and materials. The artist’s team worked closely with the Aerospace Engineering Faculty at Delft University in the Netherlands to figure out how to make the Solar Bell strong and rigid while being as light as possible. After tweaking and toying with various materials, they settled on carbon fiber tubing for the framework and flexible, paper-thin solar panels as the sails, which help to make the Solar Bell lighter than air.

The Solar Bell you’re looking at stands 5 meters tall, but the current sculpture is just a stepping stone to Saraceno’s much more ambitious vision. Eventually he’d like to see the Solar Bell reach 60 meters high, effectively turning it into an observation deck that would flutter above land or water supported totally by the wind. The idea is that humans will be able to steer and manipulate the position of the structure based on the distribution of weight. “I want to see people going up in it, climbing in it, using it,” he said.

The idea of a floating kite that people can ride isn’t so outlandish once you consider the source. This is, after all, the man who created a 27,000-square-foot net for humans to crawl around on. Saraceno, a trained architect, has always pushed the boundaries of how we view and interact with the space around us.

For now, his ideas are still just utopian concepts, but even Alexander Bell had to start somewhere. “Between earth and space, between art, architecture, ecology, meteorology and astrophysics, traditional borders that stand in the way of progress dissolve,” says Saraceno. “Playing is one of the learning processes in life. It is the cultivation of what we do not think is possible.”