An art installation bedazzles the lobby atrium of a new office building on King Street, in Kitchener-Waterloo’s growing tech community, near the offices of Yahoo and Google.

Made of 8,000 translucent discs on 650 cables, the piece was created by Dubbeldam Architecture + Design for Perimeter Development Corporation to express Kitchener’s industrial shift from manufacturing to digital economy leader.

When viewed from various perspectives, new patterns and shifts in geometry emerge. When looking straight through from the upper floors, the installation’s red-and-blue binary gradient is revealed. Photo by Riley Snelling.

“Binary Spectrum explores the yin-yang relationship of tangible fabricated object (manufacturing) with a representation of the intangible digital realm,” says architect Heather Dubbeldam. “The repetitive discs suggest digital processes and fractal patterns found in science, and are used to create a spatial effect with a human scale.”

Visitors can experience the installation’s kinetic properties. As people move in and around the space on two levels, the vertical cables softly sway, bringing the sculpture to life and reflecting the buzzing energy of the building’s inhabitants.

Second floor visitors find themselves immersed in a matrix of gently undulating colourful discs. Photo by Riley Snelling.

Myriad patterns can be viewed from different perspectives and provide a new sensory experience with each angle. Visitors can engage with the installation in unique ways. The suspended circular coloured acrylic discs fill the space and draw people in from the street.

The contrast created by two ends of the colour spectrum is softened through the gradient between them: warm red and cool blues merge and resonate with the lobby furniture, specifically sourced to coordinate with the installation’s bluish tones.

The porous installation breaks the triple-height lobby into a thousand different interstitial spaces, creating a more immersive experience for visitors. Photo by Riley Snelling.