We once lived in a building with a neon light. Most of times, it was kind of great, the advert sign was always turned on, lending us enough light to stop switching the small living room lamp. From time to time, we did wish they could turn it off. Just to save a bit of energy, just because we didn’t need that much. Hopefully, there’s a project called the Homeland Security Advisory Tower (HSAT) which could fit our need.
The HSAT is a functioning threat advisory system serving the residents of Nolita, Chinatown, Little Italy and the Bowery, in New-York City. It has been created by the OpenBeam collective and the Graffiti Research Lab, with the purpose to make people think about the security policies in the USA. But to us, what is great yield in the whole light system, solely built on LED, and that just requires a small piece of energy to enlighten the street like traditional neon signs.
HSAT plans are undisclosed on Instructables, open sourced so that other collectives and companies willing to save on their electricity bills could replicate and enhance the system. You can pretty much do what you want with such a structure. Tell us your plan by dropping a comment (click on the article title to switch to the comment panel.)
david craig – January 11, 2007
I think this is a great idea, and should be worked on in a greater scale
could you do it underwater ?
Tut – January 11, 2007
It shouldn’t be, even though the LED system is designed for casual outdoor conditions (rains for example).