The cherry blossoms at the University of Washington offer a spectacular welcome to spring every year on the school’s Seattle campus. Thursday night, a brightly shining, tech-infused tree in front of the Husky Union Building got a jump on nature.
BECU, in partnership with the UW, unveiled the 12-foot-tall work of art in a promotion aimed at symbolizing the credit union’s “commitment to supporting the UW community’s financial well-being.”
The colorful specimen features 550 3D-printed blossoms with LED lights and about 1,200 laser-cut mirrored mylar leaves that flutter and reflect the illumination source. It was created by Intention Space, a custom fabrication company located in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood.
Hal Peterson, co-owner of Intention Space, said the whole point of the fake tree is to “capitalize on the buzz” of the real cherry blossoms, which draw thousands of visitors to the UW campus, and especially The Quad, every spring. Those trees are nearly 90 years old and tracking when they’ll be in peak pink bloom is serious business at UW.
The BECU Tree is meant to mimic a Japanese bonsai tree. It grows out of a “rock” made of concrete and steel. The realistic-looking tree is sculpted out of an epoxy clay over a steel and wire body, with acrylic paint.
Ian Henry, a designer at Intention Space, said the tree isn’t just a simple plug-in-and-light-up Christmas-style display.
“There’s a pretty elaborate wiring system, and each one of the branches is addressable on its own, so we can control each branch and give it a separate program,” Henry said, adding that the tree’s microcontroller allows for a variety of lighting effects. “I can isolate a specific light and tell it to be different than all the rest, or animate a specific sequence.”
The display also has a proximity sensor that reacts to visitors. As they get closer, the lights start at the bottom of the branches and progress until the entire canopy is lit.
The whole project took about 960 hours to complete.
And it even attracted Dubs, the Husky mascot who braved a steady, cold rain in front of the Union Building to pose for pictures, howl once in a while and gobble endless treats.
“The blossoms are always a fun event every year,” Henry said. “We really wanted to bring the spirit of that.”
