One World Observatory Opens at World Trade Center

One World Observatory opened last week in New York atop the Freedom Tower, otherwise known as One World Trade Center. Promising to be a popular tourist destination, the Observatory combines panoramic views of the city with a museum-like experience.

This caught our attention because the control system for One World Trade Center’s iconic Spire Lighting, designed and installed by Barbizon Lighting, incorporates an Orion weather station for environmental monitoring.

Kate Groener of Barbizon explains: We are using a CWS Orion Weather Station to monitor weather conditions and trigger safety measures if certain parameters are exceeded. The station sends an XML file with current weather conditions via FTP to Barbizon’s lighting control server every few minutes. Our lighting control server checks that file and reacts automatically to extreme conditions – for example, if the wind speed at the 1,776 feet is above 50 MPH the system will automatically shut down the beacon motor, or if the temperature is below -10 degrees Celsius the lights will automatically be turned on in order to generate heat and keep themselves from freezing over. The weather station is also used for realtime monitoring through the Barbizon Lighting’s custom user interface so that maintenance workers can get an accurate idea of the conditions they are going to be dealing with up above the city.

For more information:

Barbizon Lighting

Architectural Lighting Application Page