An international team of architects, artists and designers has created an unconventional celebration of technology as their entry for the competition about an emblem for the next Olympic Summer games in London 2012. 120 meters above the rooftops of the English capital, a tight web made from plastic balls will float, which can be used as a projection surface for data and pictures. Current sports results, live streams as well as an emotional barometer of the city will be shown on the balls of this partially walk-on lightweight construction.

Internet giant Google has already pledged to provide the necessary data for this project. Financial support for this monument is supposed to come from millions of micro-donations from around the globe, because human beings have to come together in order to raise the cloud into the sky, says Carlo Ratti, one of the architects in charge. Moreover, the very structure itself is supposed to be a metaphor for modern Web technologies like collective intelligence or cloud computing. Thanks to photovoltaic energy harvesting and regenerative technology, the modular structure will be completely independent from external power sources. The inventors of this visionary model, among them author Umberto Eco and designer Tomas Saraceno, are really looking forward to the final result in the competition about the emblem for the Olympic Games in London 2012.

www.raisethecloud.org