metro x turbine
a self-powered lighting and signalling installation that harvests the airflow of the metro
Metro X Turbine is a flow-generated lighting installation designed for the urban subway. It explores how the movement of passengers and the displacement of air (both constant, both inherent to the metro) can be harvested to power an ambient signalling display, turning a hidden energy into a visible service.
Student Term Project
Group project Team: Alessandro Basiaco, Lorenzo Caporali, Carlo Giusti, Francesco Milana
Politecnico di Milano — Design & Engineering (MSc) Location: Milan, Italy 2023
Supervised by: Riccardo Gatti, Daniel Bruno Joseph Schreiber
Contributions: [ Concept, mechanism design, prototyping, CAD, rendering ]
01
process
The Overlooked Energy of the Metro
Every train that enters a station pushes a wall of air ahead of it; every crowd moving through the concourse stirs that air again. Underground, this airflow is treated as a byproduct at best and a nuisance at worst: something to be endured rather than used.
From Byproduct to Resource
Metro X Turbine begins by reversing that view. Instead of letting all this residual movement dissipate, the project captures it and turns it into a renewable resource: a self-sustaining supply of power for the visual indicators that improve visibility and spatial communication below ground.
How might we turn the energy the metro already wastes into something useful for the people moving through it?
Prototyping & Engineering
As a Design & Engineering project, Metro X Turbine was resolved as much on the bench as on the page. The early phase centred on building custom wind-turbine mechanisms, testing the electronic components, and calibrating the system's response to airflow that is anything but constant: surging as a train arrives, fading as it pulls away. Every iteration was measured against the two things that matter for a piece of public infrastructure: performance and reliability.
02
final design
The final installation brings together two systems in a single object: a turbine-based generation platform that harvests airflow, and an integrated signalling system that spends it as light. Together they form a device designed to run autonomously on the energy it captures, within the existing infrastructure of the metro, giving visibility back to the space it lives in.
Light as a Live Interface
The column responds to airflow in real time. As gusts rise and fall with the trains, its visual indicators shift with them, communicating status and intensity to passengers in a language that needs no explanation. Invisible currents of air become a visible urban interface, the station, in effect, showing its own pulse.
A Column in Public Space
Beyond the engineering, the design had to earn its place in a crowded, functional environment. The installation takes the form of a vertical column that slips discreetly into the subway setting while keeping its purpose fully legible: it captures movement, converts it, and returns it as light; a function readable at a glance.
A Self-Sustaining System
Because it draws power from the very movement around it, Metro X Turbine closes its own loop: the more the metro lives and breathes, the more the installation has to give. No external supply to tap into, just movement, converted into light.
