Conceptualized by artist and landscape architect Trevor Lee, WindNest is a public art project that aims to introduce green energy alternatives. The structure, redesigned for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is made possible through the Land Art Generator Initiative, a Pittsburgh-based organization that describes its work as the "co-design of our clean energy future, bringing together the disciplines of public art, urban planning, creative placemaking, and renewable energy."
Each WindNest is a brightly coloured pod that resembles the round body of a goldfish or a manta ray with its mouth open. It is perched at the end of a pole and rotates to capture wind movements. Inside each pod are solar panels and a small wind turbine, allowing individual WindNests to convert both solar and wind power into electricity.
The "Wind Nests" have at their base a charging port powered by the Wind Nests, to ensure that members of the public truly understand the message behind the project. This makes the project reflect the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of Affordable and Clean Energy.
WindNest was first designed in 2010 for the LAGI design competition on the coasts of Abu Dhabi. The shortlisted project initially had its pods serving two distinct functions. Its energy generation function started up as it was hoisted in the air. The original design also featured wildlife nests, creating a haven for a variety of desert creatures. The full design has protective bird netting to prevent birds and other wildlife from coming into contact with the wind turbines.
However, in 2013, LAGI reached out with the idea of installing the project at Pittsburgh’s Schenley Plaza. A location which has come to shape WindNest’s current pole hoisted form, as its creators had to adjust it for installation at a public place, made for human use.
Even with these adjustments made, the first WindNest was only constructed in 2022 due to the city of Pittsburgh finding its design incompatible with the rest of Schenley Plaza.
In 2022, the first WindNest finally found its home in SEE MONSTER, a retired oil platform turned art exhibition space in Weston-super-Mare, UK. Towering 35 metres in the air, SEE MONSTER will temporarily be the highest viewpoint along the South West coast of England, giving WindNest a height advantage to harvest even more wind energy than it would have been able to get if it were closer to the ground.
”Ultimately, I would like for people to be able to lie beneath WindNest and to look up and enjoy the movements, changing shadow, and sounds of the turbines rotating above,” said Lee in an interview with Land Art Generator.
Hopefully, in the future, more WindNests will be installed around the world, as it can allow people to directly use green energy harnessed from their surroundings. Without doubt, WindNests will help spread the word on just how effective solar panels and wind turbines can be.
Lee’s persistence in carrying out the project, despite facing multiple challenges that spanned over a decade, also goes to show his and the project’s resilience. A testament to the innovative and playful design’s timelessness that will continue to be relevant even if green energy has become the norm.
Find out more about WindNest and other projects by Trevor Less by checking his studio’s website at www.theolinstudio.com.