Driven by Data, Powered by Green
Kermit the Frog once said, “It’s not easy being green”—and when it comes to making sustainability metrics visible and understandable, the challenge only grows.
At PNC Tower, designed to be the greenest office tower in the world, ESI devised a way to communicate environmental impact. “The Beacon,” a data-and-light media installation in the atrium lobby, interprets data from the building’s advanced green systems and the external environment, then translates it into ever-changing patterns of light, color and sound.
To bring sustainability metrics to life, ESI created five interpretive modes for the Beacon—weather, sunlight, energy, water, and recycling. The installation features 32 vertical levels, symbolizing the building’s 32 floors, and is composed of 1,584 liquid-crystal polycarbonate panels, each backed by a matrix of low-resolution LEDs. These panels translate complex data into real-time visual expressions—shifting patterns and pulses of light and color informed by inputs such as energy consumption, indoor and outdoor temperatures, wind speed, precipitation, and more.
To help deepen public and occupant understand of sustainable design, ESI also developed a companion website, accessible from tablets in the lobby or any connected device or computer, which explains the meaning of the Beacon’s colorful light visualizations.
We went to ESI and said, how do we get the people in the building to understand how the building is performing?
