ASHRAE Show and Millennium Park

This week we had the pleasure of attending the ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers) winter show in Chicago, North America's largest heating and cooling show. Lots to see, and lots of innovation going on. 

We had fun scootering around the city, looking at materials and building techniques. In Millennium Park, we saw frost patterns on the Cloud Gate sculpture (the "Bean") one morning, then had the opportunity to speak with one of the builders from the firm that constructed the sculpture and did the finishing work. He was taking out a scratched graffitti tag.

Frost patterns melting on Cloud Gate

A steel worker removing scratched graffitti

He recounted the long, slow process of constructing the sculpture and taking the stainless steel panels to a seamless mirror finish. He said the first time they saw the frost patterns, they thought the whole mirror finish had somehow gone wrong. They were relieved when the air temperature warmed and all the lines vanished.

Red, green and blue LEDs that create the video imagery on the Crown Fountain