At Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) a clear decision was made to move away from dedicated hard- and software environments. This will lead to the replacement of different aging meteorological workstation systems. These will be substituted by a new unified workstation, called the Common Graphics System CGS. The CGS is at the time of writing a joined effort between DWD, MeteoSwiss and GMGO ( German Military Geophysical Office ). The project started late 1999. After collecting and structuring user requirements we began to investigate new portable system architectures. A new framework based on java technology promises to fulfill the requirements. The design of the CGS features a three tier architecture. Generic interfaces between the tiers allow for any kind of data storage (e.g. flat files or RDBMS), middleware (sockets, RMI or CORBA), easy configuration of the client's functionalities and a flexible graphics output ( integrated 2D and 3D visualization, offscreen rendering and plotting ). The CGS is intended to replace the old workstation systems in mid/late 2004. At the time of the conference a first evolving prototype shall be available.