ORBI - ECOLOGICAL LANDMARK
Brief: International Architectural Competition - What is appropriate as a town landmark built today, irrespective of its scale or size ?
Location: N/A
Organised by: Central Glass Co. Ltd - Shinkenchiku-sha Co. Ltd, Japan
Stage: Concept design
Date: 2005
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afMRCMeXVwo

The idea was to enlarge the field of reflection to encompass a more global vision of a landmark and to tell a story in which each individual or group in any location worldwide would be concerned with.
Internationally reknowned landmarks have either been the expression of myth, religion, technology or power. Ecology is now the value to promote and is a global concern in which every town must play its part. The whole planet becomes a potential site and the local and global scales are tightly linked through a "glocal" concern.
Annually, a town will be selected based on the most significant ecological improvement. This town will inherit ORBI, the ecological landmark which will fly geostationary for one year above it.
The morphological characteristics of ORBI are derived from the properties of water, air and the living organisms they generate. The morphological changes are synchronised with the variations of water (tidal levels) and air (wind, atmospheric pressure).
Through its cyclical transformations ORBI could be seen either as a positive award or a negative utopia, an ecological mutant or the embodiement of the ecological threat.