The BT Tower in London, England was transformed for one night only last week into a giant, 581-foot-high lightsaber. But why?

Why would Lucasfilm go to the expense of mounting over sixty 4.5kw at the top of a famous London skyscraper — a building that, admittedly, already looks like the handle of a lightsaber? To celebrate the release of the Star Wars saga on Blu-ray, of course. The giant lightsaber itself was blue in color, hence it had a “blue ray” (get it?). The beam shone over 600 meters into the night sky, and was reportedly visible from all over London. The best part of all: the whole thing was controlled by an iPad from the roof of an adjacent building.

The lightsaber was activated last Thursday night, the 15th of September, at 8:30 PM by C-3PO himself, Anthony Daniels. Darth Vader and a legion of Stormtroopers were on hand for the event, of course. Check out Vader “holding” the giant lightsaber in the photo below, and then head over to the Flickr account of Eddie Lawrence for some terrific high-res shots of the BT Tower on this special night. (One of his shots is below.)

Darth Vader and the BT Tower Lightsaber

BT Tower Lightsaber in London (photo by Eddie Lawrence)

Olympic games always inspire architectural feats that capture the imagination, but the 2012 London Olympics are getting a monument like nothing the world has ever seen. It’s called the Cloud, and it’s envisioned as a symbol of the digital age.

The Cloud tower is made up of inflatable, light-emitting spheres floating above lightweight, slender columns, which together create a three-dimensional display you can go inside, that feeds real-time information to London’s skies. Citizens and visitors all over London will be able to see the information displayed by LEDs embedded into the spheres that make up the top of the structure.

Though it’s only one of several proposed monuments that may be selected to grace the 2012 Olympic Park, the worldwide consortium of designers behind the project — who are contributing to its design and funding in a very grassroots way — are committed to building the tower somewhere in London, even if doesn’t get selected for Olympic Park. The size and dimensions of the Cloud are not set in stone, for example, and can be easily altered based on the amount of money raised to build it. Efforts to “raise the Cloud” have gone social, with Facebook, Twitter, Google, and YouTube already put to use to spread the word about it, and hopefully, find the needed sponsors to make it a reality.

The Cloud will also be one of the greenest structures ever built, since it will create all of its own electricity. Visitors will ascend the tower either on foot or on bicycle using a spiral ramp, but descending is to be handled via elevators that use “regenerative breaking,” which collect the power used by the elevators and recycle it. Solar panels will also be heavily utilized.

So what will it be like to step inside the Cloud? Imagine being a 360 degree digital display that’s constantly showing things like Olympic stats, news updates, Internet traffic reports, mobile phone activity, decibel levels, and much more.

Architecturally or scientifically speaking, I have absolutely no idea how something like this would work. And I don’t care. All I know is that it looks absolutely amazing.

The Gathering Hall will be constructed at he former site of the prestigious Lazarides gallery in central London.

There’ll be three floors dedicated to the PSP game which launched in Britain last week, with comfy seating, free soft drinks, graffiti art, and space for the hundreds of gamers expected to turn up over the next two months.

To get in, you have to bring your PSP loaded up with Monster Hunter. The venue is open from 10am-8pm every day (10pm on Thursdays).

In London and want to be prepared? Here’s the venue map: 121 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2 0EW.