Silicon Valley is an interesting place. It is the land of technological innovation. A small town with big ideas, built on dreams and mounds of coffee. It is also the land of futuristic chandeliers that pulse with light and move to visualize network traffic around them. 

The Edison Project chandelier is made up of LED bulbs on a 10 foot by 10 foot grid. (photo courtesy of IDEO)

The Epiphany, a new hotel located in Palo Alto, recently approached a group of engineers from the IDEO Digital Shop to create an installation that defines the innovative significance of Silicon Valley. The team decided to start with the technology that made all others possible: the bulb. 

Close up of the LED bulbs used in Project Edison. (photo courtesy of IDEO)

LEDs are made to mimic the appearance of incandescent bulbs. (photo courtesy of IDEO)

The team created Project Edison, a chandelier built on a 10 foot by 10 foot grid consisting of LED bulbs. The bulbs vary in brightness and are positioned independently. This creates an infinite number of motions that can be programed through an open-source code. 

(top) Wiring linking the bulbs up to data streams. (bottom) Upward view of the LED interactive chandelier. (photos courtesy of IDEO)

“Our goal was to honor the spirit of innovation with an interactive installation that set a new standard for interaction design going forward. We wanted to build something that would be truly open to the world around it and could evolve over time as technology and the technological community changes,” said the IDEO team.

The team is currently busying documenting the code and hardware for the installation.  To see the chandelier in action, visit The Project Edison  webpage.