Firm： Arktura LLC

Type： Commercial › Office

STATUS： Built

YEAR： 2016

Data Swarm is a large-scale feature wall designed and installed for the IBM Watson Experience Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, focused on Machine Learning and Cognitive Computing for the health sciences. The project, a collaboration between the Los Angeles design firm Synthesis Design + Architecture and Los Angeles fabricator Arktura with the IBM Watson Analytics team, is a digitally-fabricated three-dimensional specialization of data. Its design was derived from co-concurrence analysis data from IBM Watson Analytics, analyzing relationships between 7 genetic influenced diseases against distinct genes, drugs, and years. This drove a field of swarm agents to produce a combined vector and height field. The resultant project is simultaneously an abstract representation of Big Data that offers a uniquely spatial marketing narrative, as well as a dynamic architectural feature with a visual experience that is amplified through the movement of visitors through the Experience Center.