gizmodo_2010 - LAb[au]

GIZMODO
online blog about gadgets and technology
post:13.07.2010

title:
Sure Beats the Weather Channel

featuring:
weather.tower, permanent illumination Brussels Dexia Tower

post:
We all check the weather in habitual, niche ways. Some watch the news, others glance at their phones. And others still? They require nothing short of 6,000 windows illuminated by 72,000 RGB LEDs that abstractly report the weather.

For a 2008 project by Belgian design studio lab[au], the Dexia Tower in Brussels was transformed into a giant weather report. Since it was art, rather than using mere numbers, the tower emitted a chroma geometric language that we're guessing you'd learn to interpret immediately following the first time you wore shorts to a blizzard.

But the brilliance of the project, so to speak, was that a relatively small number of LEDs produced a relatively large-scale effect. There were only 12, 3-color LEDs within each window, but they emitted their light onto window shades. So whereas the LED-equipped Dexia Tower could have been fitted with the pinpointed LED aesthetic of your home entertainment system, instead it resembled something out of Vegas circa 2025.