inhabitat - LAb[au]

inhabit
internet blog
featuring:
weather.tower, permanent illumination Brussels Dexia Tower

14.07.2010
by Yuka Yoneda

Dexia Towers' 72,000 Rainbow LEDs Light Up to Show Tomorrow's Weather
Thinking about turning on the news or heading to Weather.com to check out the forecast? Bo-ring! Wouldn't it be infinitely cooler if you could just glance over at a giant skyscraper illuminated by a rainbow of 72,000 LEDs to let you know whether it was going to rain or be sunny? Well that's exactly what the Dexia Towers in Brussels do. The buildings' 6,000 windows light up the night sky with a barrage of colorful bulbs showing residents of the city if they need to bring an umbrella to work the next day.

Read more: Dexia Tower Lights Up with 72,000 LEDs to Show Tomorrow's Weather | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World Designed by lab-au, the installation uses a dozen LEDs in each window, making the whole building look like a big Lite Brite (remember those?) canvas. The whole thing is uber-pretty, but how do you tell the weather? Well the temperature is shown based on the monthly average and a different color represents each increase or decrease. There also apparently is some color code for depicting humidity, wind speed and precipitation, but it beats us.
v We have to admit that the project is pretty awesome looking and it's notable that the designers opted to use LEDs, but we have to point out that the building would use considerably less energy if they used less lights or lit them up for shorter periods of time.

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NOTE: According to the Dexia Towers website, the lighting of the weather forecast lights has been drastically reduced due to the economic and financial conditions. Between sunset and midnight, the lights will only illuminate for 10 minutes per hour. Well, we guess that takes care of that.