What’s Blacker Than Black? Asif Khan’s Super-Black Olympic Pavilion
Jeffrey Heimgartner posted on February 27, 2018 | 624 views
Attendees at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics were surrounded by white, blinding snow; bright, vivid colors representing 92 countries; and the complete absence of color—or rather a 99 percent absence of light. British architect Asif Khan was the creative force behind an Olympic pavilion that can claim to be the first of its kind: a super-black building.
Commissioned by Hyundai Motor Company, the 13,000-square-foot pavilion Khan designed was made with the vision of creating a window cut into space.
“From a distance the structure has the appearance of a window looking into the depths of outer space,” Khan stated in a press release. “As you approach it, this impression grows to fill your entire field of view. So, on entering the building, it feels as though you are being absorbed into a cloud of blackness.”
Khan’s vision was made possible by spraying the building’s 33-foot-tall facades with Vantablack VBx2, a super-black material that absorbs almost all the light that hits its surface, creating the illusion of a void. Khan then used thousands of small white lights on rods to complete his out-of-this world vision.
The Hyundai Pavilion coated in a super-black material. (Image courtesy of Hyundai.)
What exactly is this fascinating material? Developed by Surrey NanoSystems, Vantablack has been referred to as the…