VANTA: every tower casts a shadow.
VANTA is an invented architecture studio that designs only high-rise buildings in Rotterdam. DTB WEB designed and built the website as a concept. At its heart is a shadow study: a real 3D city around the Rijnhaven, lit by the computed sun of 21 June.
The question
How does an architecture studio show how it thinks, without only showing beautiful renders? High-rise design is about light, wind and what a tower does to the street. Visitors should see that thinking on the site, not just read about it.
The idea
The site follows one day in Rotterdam, from morning to night. In the shadow study the studio’s six towers stand together in the city, under the sun of the longest day. Scroll, or press Play the day, and you see where their shadows fall. At night the windows and streets light up, and at the foot of the page the last window on the Maas goes dark.
The technique
The city is 2.2 kilometres of real Rotterdam in three.js, built from open data: the aerial photo from Beeldmateriaal Nederland on the ground and the roofs, the buildings from 3DBAG by TU Delft and the roads from the Dutch national road database as lines of light. The sun’s position is computed for 21 June. The camera moves like a drone and leans with your mouse, and a pin on each tower opens its card.
A concept, not a client
VANTA does not exist, and neither do the six towers. Their names, heights, the address and the news are invented; the photos of the towers are mood images of other buildings. The city around them is real, and so is the site itself.
From the live website
