"Industrial" Weather Station Becomes Musical Instrument for Architectural Installation


Normally utilized by industrial and government applications, Columbia Weather Systems' Orion Weather Station is featured as an instrument of music in a new art installation in the lobby of a new Microsoft building in Redmond, Wash. Portland-area artist Ethan Rose has created "Elements", a permanent art installation that interprets the weather with music. Using an Orion weather station to capture the data, the Weather MicroServer offers an XML data file over an Ethernet connection. Weather measurements interpreted by software trigger musical sounds that play through around one hundred speakers mounted into the lobby's ceiling.



According to Roses's website, "This representative gesture sonically engages the lobby space as a threshold between built and natural environments, inviting building users to experience a musical connection between inside and out."



The Orion Weather Station features an all-in-one sensor with ultrasonic wind measurements, temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, and impact rainfall. The Weather MicroServer offers additional sensor options -- in this case solar radiation -- as well as internet and industrial protocols for data. Specifically for this application, the rain gauge output was modified for increased resolution which will benefit all Orion customers.



Columbia Weather Systems manufactures professional weather monitoring systems for industrial, government -- and artistic -- applications around the world.


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