Solar Pine

🌞 Solar Pine – Project Overview

Solar Pine is an interactive environmental installation that transforms solar energy into responsive light. Designed in collaboration with POSCO, one of South Korea’s largest steel manufacturers, the structure uses solar panels to illuminate surrounding spaces with atmospheric lighting at night. Beyond aesthetics, the lighting dynamically reflects real-time air quality levels, serving as a poetic reminder of our environmental conditions.

The project explores the potential of large-scale, mass-producible eco-structures that combine utility, beauty, and social awareness. Its form and function are both rooted in material experimentation and responsive systems design.

🛠 Development Process

The creation of Solar Pine began with breadboarding experiments, simulating how a 12V RGB LED strip could respond to environmental inputs using an Arduino microcontroller. Through prototyping, we mapped interaction flows between data input (air quality) and light output (color and intensity).

This was followed by a series of lighting tests to study diffusion, visibility, and color response under different physical enclosures and time conditions. These experiments informed the structural design and user experience.

🧪 Circuit - 12V RGB LED with Arduino

To develop a seamless lighting system, we prototyped with 12V RGB LED strips controlled by Arduino. The circuit was optimized to translate sensor data into meaningful visual output, while remaining simple enough for scalable production.

💡 Lighting Test

Final lighting tests were conducted to simulate the installation’s behavior in context. Light behavior was evaluated not only in terms of color shifts but also emotional tone, ambient presence, and visibility from different viewing angles.