Madison College is a technical and community college centered in Madison, Wisconsin. The College was looking to create a feature piece for its new Gateway Building, which serves as the front entrance to the College‘s Truax campus. The large, light-filled four-story atrium offered an opportunity for a “digital waterfall” that consisted of a masonry wall containing inset channels of sculpted glass. Traxon worked with the design team to enhance this centerpiece, adding Dot XL-3 placed on 4” centers behind the glass, producing vertical lines of light that could be animated.
Sensors were placed on the ramp at the base of the wall, below each channel. When the ramp is unoccupied, a background pattern and associated soundscape play. Whenever a sensor is tripped the e:cue control system plays an animated timeline on the associated channel, and a midi note is sent to the sequencer, essentially allowing students to play the wall like a keyboard. A variety of themes were built for the wall, so that the background, sounds, and animated effects change throughout the day.