Intelligent infrastructure for power, data and display systems
Designed by Danny Hillis, Bran Ferren, and Sheila Kennedy, Viaro is intended to catalyze a new generation of radically flexible interior spaces. By combining its open, modular building power infrastructure with an array of space-making elements and manufacturing capabilities, Viaro enables the creation of environments that are rapidly and inexpensively reconfigurable. Powered by Viaro, new or renovated interior spaces become programmable environments, responsive to the ever-changing ways in which people work, play, shop, heal and live.
Manufactured by Herman Miller, Viaro consists of a system of ceiling-mounted rails that hosts a modular power distribution system and a communication & control system. The combination of power, data, and structural support for communications and display equipment enables the occupants of a space to program peer-to-peer connections between plugged-in devices. The Viaro infrastructure is modular, so that occupants or facility owners can upgrade interior spaces on an as-needed basis. Viaro is also mobile and reusable: it can be entirely disassembled from its original site and reinstalled in other locations.
Contact: Herman Miller, Inc., Zeeland, Michigan, USA.
For more information, see Transmaterial: A Catalog of Materials That Redefine our Physical Environment
