Thursday 17 February 2011

Westpac Place, barometer

Westpac Place is a 33 storey commercial building on Kent Street, which is the Australian headquarters for Westpac Bank. The roof features a weather beacon barometer inside an illuminated white glass tower. The eight red, light emitting diode (LED), illuminated bars on the north and south faces represent 990 hPa to 1025 hPa, in 5 hPa increments. As pressure rises or falls, the LED  bars ripple in an upward or downward direction to provide real time information on barometric pressure changes. Low pressure usually indicates inclement weather and high pressure usually indcates clear weather. The illumination level of the LED bars and tower is controlled by a roof mounted photosensor, with the brightest levels in the middle of the day, dimming at dusk and reaching the lowest level after dark.

14 comments:

  1. Why do banks always have to look like they got all the money? I mean you never see a bank in some backwoods hut stuck somewhere in the poor end of town.

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  2. sounds very sophisticated and useful thanks for sharing as I learned a bit through your post

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  3. Quite the posh bank building. Is this where all our money is going?

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  4. Good blog Jim, but how do you tell if it is rising or falling - I find it hard to judge.

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  5. Well there you go ... I never knew that was a barometer.

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  6. Abe & Rnsane, the money these banks have does seem a bit obcene sometimes, especially when they announce their super profits.

    Peter, often there isn't much change in pressure so it's not obvious. On this day, while I was standing around it rose and fell a couple of times.

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  7. Alas - Art Deco is nowhere to be found.

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  8. A very good idea and an interesting realization. I'd like to see something like this here!

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  9. That's one cool building. It can tell you when it's about to rain, right?

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  10. zakton, that's pretty much right. Maybe not exactly predict when it will rain but certainly when it's overcast and there's a good chance of rain.

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