Da Vinci Code: Salt Lake City’s Leonardo Museum

The firm AJC Architects handled the lion’s share of the work required to transform a mid-century public library in Salt Lake City into The Leonardo, an art, science, and technology museum. But it’s E/B Office that makes the big statement in the lobby atrium. The firm’s partners, Brian Brush and Yong Ju Lee, specialize in digital design and the intersection of information, architecture, and sustainability, and the Leonardo’s Dynamic Performance of Nature embodies all those interests.

After 176 fins were molded from recycled plastic, they were CNC-cut with holes to accept LEDs strung onto rods in the form of a sine wave. Environmental sensors connected to global data sources-on temperature, wind, even earthquakes-feed that information to the LEDs, which change from ice blue to danger red across the installation’s 92-foot width. Visitors on-site or online can also change the colors by tweeting a special request to @LeoArtwall.