Betty DIFEI CHEN

AEOLIAN SONIFORMATION

Terraforming Mars

Independent Research
Design Partner | Joseph Fala
Vertical Design Studio | Spring 2011
Advisor | EJ Seong

The field on Mars is a landscape pattern formed by whirlwind activity churning surface material to expose underlying material, darker in color. The whirlwinds result from the pressure balance displacement of rising of heated air with denser cold air. The dynamic quality of the air movement is transformed into both structural and spatial consequences.

The dynamism of air movement in Chen’s analysis of the Dust Devil Field is combined with the concept of instantaneous change from wind force to gravitational force in the Parabolic Sand Dune Field of Fala’s analysis. A re-manufactured landscape system emerges from the terrain to grow into an abstract formalized structure before receding back into the ground. The pavilion suggests an attempt of recreating sound with architecture in an environment void of a sound-supporting earth-like atmosphere.