Fireflies

The Rare Diseases Centre at St Thomas’ Hospital is the first of its kind in the UK to provide a space designed for adults and children with life-long genetic and skin conditions that affect many organs in the body. BAT Studio were commissioned to design and install a feature wall with a forest theme consisting of digital fireflies. The wall brings the outside world in, as some of the patients may not be able to go outside very much due to their conditions.

The code controlling the fireflies animation is based on the real life cycles and behaviour patterns of fire flies. The code and bespoke software was developed by friend of the studio, Stefan Dzisiewski-Smith. Approaching the brief, Stefan realised that mimicking nature as closely as possible was the most effective way to create the generative animation.