energy consumption is to limit, or conserve our energy use. Another is to invest in products and construction methods that use less energy. We would like to propose another idea: what if people contribute a very small amount of their energy into a collective pool which could be used to fuel the very processes they necessitate?

People interact with buildings in ways which can easily be mechanically harnessed and converted to electricity, such as opening a door, walking through a turnstile, or opening and closing a window. These previously untapped sources of energy can be utilized by redefining the relationship between building and user to produce energy, rather than consume. Most energy is produced through non-renewable means and stored remotely, creating a disjunction between people’s conception of how much energy they need and consume, as well as where energy comes from. As the need for environmental responsibility increases it is clear that people must have a better understanding of how they directly affect their surroundings. The Revolution Door is an invention which shows people their impact in the energy cycle at the very moment they enter the front door.

Historically, revolving doors have been used for their positive environmental benefits. These benefits include handling a high volume of traffic, while preventing the direct exchange of tempered interior air with exterior air, thereby reducing the need for excess heating or cooling. Our proposal is a modified revolving door which expands upon these advantages by converting the movement of people entering and exiting into usable electricity. The Revolution Door is comprised of three parts – a redesigned central core, a mechanical/electrical system that harnesses human energy from the spinning of the door and redistributes the resulting electricity, and an output system. One of many possible output systems is a light display which maps human interactions over time, and tallies electricity output compared with human calories burned. By harvesting the residual energy of human effort and converting it to light, the Revolution Door will directly communicate a single person’s contribution to an energy cycle possible through the metabolic relationship between people, technology, and architecture.

As individuals the donation would be negligible, but as a force of collective action - collaboration between people, architecture, and technology - the Revolution Door has the ability to harness a significant amount of electricity, thereby making a positive contribution to changing the way energy mining and utilization is conceptualized. Our current full-scale prototype is capable of producing 12 Volts of electricity. This is enough to charge a standard car battery. If the Revolution Door was located in a highly trafficked area - i.e. where 2,000 people entered and exited in one 10-hour period, it would produce enough electricity to illuminate 10 – 150 Watt light bulbs, potentially enough energy to illuminate an entire entry lobby. We believe that with further optimization and design of the mechanical/electrical conversion system we can double the output without noticeable impact to a user’s interaction with the door. In the past, the amount of energy harnessed from the Revolution Door would be too small to make a substantial energy impact and therefore considered economically unfeasible. Today, the advent of technology requiring small amounts of energy to perform substantial tasks, such as LED lighting or shape memory alloys, makes viable new breakthroughs in small energy harnessing devices; changing the way we think about energy production and storage. The amount of energy used to run 10 – 150 Watt light bulbs could instead light 1,500 standard LED’s.

We are in discussion with Crane Revolving Doors regarding the commercialization of the Revolution Door. Our goal is to design both a renovation product and a new door. The renovation Revolution Door would only require replacement of the top of an existing revolving door, making it a less intrusive change and reducing waste. The harnessed electricity could then be directly wired to the entry lobby lights, or stored in a battery. The new Revolution Door would have a redesigned central core, optimized for use with the mechanical/electrical conversion system located either below the user’s feet or on top of the door. With the use of the refurbished and new design, we see the Revolution Door becoming an industry standard in the future.

For all of these reasons, the Revolution Door is an excellent example of the Trimtab principle; its validity is rooted in the current age where the invention of low energy products makes small scale power plants viable, thereby changing the way we think about energy production and storage. The Revolution Door is also non-intrusive; it does not ask people to do something that they do not already do – use a revolving door. The Revolution Door uses an industry standard and improves upon it, saving time, resources, money and literally, energy.

The Revolution Door is created by Fluxxlab, whose work to date has been focused on sustainable energy harvesting, specifically in the form of converting small amounts of human energy into electricity. The design firm consists of two partners, Jennifer Broutin and Carmen Trudell, who are both trained as architects. Jennifer is a designer with professional experience in architecture and in exhibition design as well as architectural publication. Carmen is a registered architect, and a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) accredited professional. She currently teaches design and construction technology at the New York City College of Technology in the Department of Architecture. Both Jennifer and Carmen graduated from Columbia Universities’ Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design program, where they began research for the Revolution Door.

Fluxxlab’s advisory board consists of Natalie Jeremijenko, Jeff Perlman and Michael Winter of United Technologies. Natalie Jeremijenko is a design engineer and technoartist who is principal of New York based Xdesign. Recently she was named one of the top one hundred young innovators by the MIT Technology Review. Her work includes digital, electromechanical, and interactive systems in addition to biotechnological work. Natalie has served as the director of the Engineering Design Studio at Yale University and has taught at the New York University Center for Advanced Technology, the School of Visual Art New York, and the San Francisco Art Institute. Jeffrey Perlman is president of Bright Power, a consulting firm based in New York City with expertise in design, installation and financing of renewable energy and energy efficiency systems. Jeff has designed, installed and/or obtained financing for solar and energy efficiency projects on numerous buildings in the New York area. Michael Winter is director of the Hamilton Sundstrand Program in conjunction with the Pratt & Whitney division at United Technologies Research Center, where they design, manufacture and support of aircraft engines, gas turbines and space propulsion systems.

Fluxxlab has been assisted by various professionals toward realizing the Revolution Door. Will Kavesh and Emrys Berkower of 3Phase Design in Brooklyn, New York have aided in prototyping with precision machining of parts and fabrication of components. Ben Eadie of Mountain Wave is an aeronautical engineer who is aiding in the design of the mechanical/electrical system which converts kinetic energy into electricity, he previously worked on the Human Powered Vehicle featured in WIRED Magazine’s NextFest in Los Angeles. Stephanie Jones of A& J Services Company Inc. of New York is assisting Fluxxlab with legal/business enterprise.

Jennifer and Carmen were awarded a residency and funding in 2006 from Eyebeam in New York City to continue research on the Revolution Door. Their work on the project will be featured in an upcoming exhibition at Eyebeam in January of 2008, to conclude a series on Eyebeam’s 10th Anniversary and dedication to sustainable work. Fluxxlab was recently awarded a New York University Sustainability Grant to install a functioning prototype of the Revolution Door on campus in 2008 with Natalie Jeremijenko, who will assist in documenting the use and output of the device with NYU students, providing further research data. Fluxxlab has presented the Revolution Door project at an Interactive Architecture conference in New York in January, 2007, and was included in Wired Magazine’s NextFest 2007 in California. The Revolution Door project was reported on in a March 2007 issue of Architecture Newspaper, and was recently filmed for a spot on the Science Channel’s upcoming series on green inventions, set to air in February of 2008.

The Revolution Door is in patent pending status, as the R&D/prototyping phase of the project is ongoing at Fluxxlab’s studio in Long Island City, New York. Fluxxlab is currently working on a full scale prototype to present to New York University’s Sustainability Fund in December 2007.

Fluxxlab is applying for funding to design and engineer an economically viable version of the Revolution Door for commercialization. While strategic partners, business and marketing development for the project are underway, our greatest need currently is funding. The Buckminster Fuller Prize would allow Fluxxlab to move past developmental stages and into a more realistic and commercially feasible version of the Revolution Door.