Glare from London 'fryscraper' blamed for melting cars

http://news.yahoo.com/glare-london-skyscraper-melted-jaguar-133036022.html

by dsr12 • 13 years ago

268 202 13 years ago

news.yahoo.com

JonnieCache2• 13 years ago

While this has been on HN before, there are some alarming new details:

Angry local shopkeepers also say the so-called "death ray" has blistered their paintwork, singed holes in doormats and caused their tiles to smash.

Blimey. Surely britain's ever-enterprising shopkeepers can harness this power though? Solar oven anyone?

Also:

They later said a temporary scaffold screen would be erected at street level within 24 hours.

Are they going to have to make that out of some special ceramic or something? Or will it be OK as it will sit far from the focal length of the "lens?"

unwind• 13 years ago

I understood it to mean that the scaffolding will block incoming light before it reaches the lens of the building's facade. It will, of course also block reflected light, but the main benefit ought to be blocking it before it becomes focused.

JonnieCache2• 13 years ago

I guess I was imagining the light coming down almost vertically (hard to block) and then being reflected into the street, but I suppose that's not really how light works is it, no matter how oddly shaped your building is. Thanks for the correction.

frobozz2• 13 years ago

I'd be surprised if they could get a "temporary scaffold screen" "at street level" up "within 24 hours" that would be capable of that. This is a tall building and the problem appears to be quite high up.

I would imagine that the purpose is to provide something else for the death ray to burn instead of shops and cars.

moron4hire2• 13 years ago

Seems to me, if you're building a building primarily out of glass, you'd want to study the impact of the glare. There is a hotel in Las Vegas that has a similar problem. How can these building projects get approved, through so many people, and nobody once stops to think about the glare problem?

mrcharles2• 13 years ago

The hotel in Vegas was built with a special film on the glass to reduce the glare by 70%. So they were obviously studying it/thinking about it. But if 70% is not enough, imagine if they had actually done nothing?

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/vdara-visitor-death-ray-sc...

Cthulhu_• 13 years ago

Inner city solar power plant!

mikeash14• 13 years ago

If only there were some technique they could have used to calculate the amount of energy that would get focused with the 70% film in place to see that it was still too much.

sschueller• 13 years ago

Especially if the building is going to be curved!

mikeash14• 13 years ago

As I pointed out in another thread about this story, the basic concept has been around since at least Ancient Greece, so, how stupid do you have to be to construct a giant curved glass structure and not consider that it might burn things?

jacobparker5• 13 years ago

- Is that a serious question?

- Have you ever been part of a group that made a (complicated) mistake?

You gain nothing by deluding yourself about the intelligence of an imaginary person (there is no "you")

Try being less negative.

kamjam• 13 years ago

It's a sad human trait that thinks they know best and do not heed the lessons already learnt from history, and therefore bound to make the same mistake someone else has already made. Worse still is when is the same mistake you have already made!

mbq• 13 years ago

Fun fact: this hotel, Vdara, and 20 Fenchurch Street 'fryscraper' were both designed by the same architect, Rafael Viñoly.

jameshart• 13 years ago

It's less of a systemic problem with architects in general, more of a specific issue for one architect in particular: Rafael Viñoly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Vi%C3%B1oly). He designed the Vdara hotel in Vegas that had a concave facade which melted sunloungers; and he's also responsible for the "Walkie Talkie" building in London which we're discussing here. It's almost as if he has a blindspot when it comes to this problem. Maybe he looked at one of his own buildings too long.

gaius• 13 years ago

No, it is a systemic problem. If a civil engineer routinely designed building that bits fell off and destroyed parked cars, he'd lose his license to practice! Where's the Guild of Architects when you need them?

moron4hire2• 13 years ago

Haha, that would be amazingly hilarious if it didn't involve property destruction and waste.

mturmon• 13 years ago

The Frank Gehry-designed Concert Hall in LA had the same problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_Concert_Hall#Reflec...). Gehry uses proprietary 3D design software based on Catia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CATIA) to design the curved surfaces of his buildings. He's spun that off as a product in its own right (http://www.gehrytechnologies.com).

In Gehry's case, they did an after-the-fact analysis and dulled some of the reflective surfaces (it's quite noticeable, going from shiny to matte). Presumably, given the trend towards more sculptural buildings, analysis of reflections will become standard. It's not hard to do.

VLM2• 13 years ago

I've noticed that architects, at least below median architects, generally ignore the effect of sunlight on their designs. You'd think their profession would have noticed its importance at some point in the last twenty five centuries, but its apparently beneath them to care. This is a huge problem in many office buildings I've worked in.

Lets align the desks so no one can see anything due to the glare in the afternoon (LOL better yet if no blinds/shades for artistic stylistic reasons)

Hmm, putting a big monitor in the conference room? Eh who cares if no one can see it due to the sun.

It would be like mech eng pretending column buckling doesn't exist, or programmers pretending users never make data entry errors.

jacques_chester2• 13 years ago

The days of the Vitruvian virtues have long since passed, friend. It doesn't matter if a building is useful. What matters is that it is a monument to cooperative egocentricity: the architect's and the commissioner's.

mikeash14• 13 years ago

"It would be like... programmers pretending users never make data entry errors."

I think I've spotted a problem!

jessaustin2• 13 years ago

I've noticed that architects, at least below median architects, generally ignore...

It's my experience that most architects, and certainly most "below median" architects, only ever design one building. Everything they design is a variation on the same theme, whether it's a bank or a house or a library (and certainly if it's the ninth house they've designed this year). Their theme might evolve slowly over time, but it's rare to find an architect capable of producing actually-new work based only on the client's wishes and the requirements of construction. This is why you're best off finding an architect whose buildings you like rather than trying desperately to convince any particular architect to change her style.

So, if most feasible designs do not have this light-focusing property, most architects will never run into the problem. However, an uncreative architect who does somehow produce this effect, may be expected to do so repeatedly. Hmmm, that seems to accord with the record here.

kamkha• 13 years ago

The situation is even more amazing than you think. That Las Vegas hotel you mention was designed by the same firm [1][2].

[1] http://www.rvapc.com/works/707-20-fenchurch-street [2] http://www.rvapc.com/works/index/691-vdara-hotel--spa-at-cit...

aqme28• 13 years ago

"The developers said the phenomenon was caused by 'the current elevation of the sun in the sky', and that as Britain heads into autumn the problem should disappear."

Thus solving the problem once and for all.

dasil003• 13 years ago

Hahaha! That's much funnier than my observation that it's just a particularly sunny summer in London and so this is a 100-year problem.

wil4213• 13 years ago

Typical corporate response: its not our fault its the elevation of the sun. Once the sun decides to move it will not be a problem.

How about they design a building right. If the 4 story condos I lived in previously were designed to be facing North and South so the sun didnt heat them up as much during the day. I would think a massive 37 floor building project in London would have taken into account the position of the sun as well.

madaxe• 13 years ago

It's owned by LandSec. They don't give two hoots what they build, or how they build it, as due to their "special status", they make great gobs of cash for anything they build, regardless of whether it's commercially viable, suitable, needed, and so-forth.

mseebach2• 13 years ago

No, it's a very measured and pragmatic response. It even struck me as something an engineer would write. Explaining the conditions leading to a problem is not evading responsibility.

The test, of course, will be whether they will be using the coming 12 months to figure out a solution and applying it so this won't happen again next time there's sun in September. I think they will, since torching things is generally not a good idea, and also liability hell.

How about they design a building right.

Oh please. If you've never build anything that turned out to malfunction in an unexpected way, you've never build anything.

It's not about taking the position of the sun into account, it's foreseeing that the curvature of the facade would concentrate the sun in an unfortunate way.

MattBearman• 13 years ago

"But what abou-"

"ONCE AND FOR ALL!"

swang• 13 years ago

Yeah except you used the quote out of context.

"In addition, we are consulting with local businesses and the City to address the issue in the short-term, while also evaluating longer-term solutions to ensure the issue cannot recur in future."

VladRussian23• 13 years ago

he distilled the part that contains the meaning while he left the auto-generated meaningless and tautological fluff ("longer-term solutions to ensure the issue cannot recur in future") out.

InclinedPlane2• 13 years ago

The problem is that the building is basically a crude concave mirror, that problem will persist any time the Sun is in the right parts of the sky, the building continues to be the same shape, and the building's surface continues to be dominated by windows made of glass (or any material which has a similar degree of reflectivity, especially at high angles).

There are simply no good, truly long-term solutions to this problem that do not involve drastic changes to the building. The best solution would likely be to do something about the windows on the concave side of the building, putting some sort of external shade on them, changing the angle each window faces, or something to disrupt the normal magnification effect.

The correct solution is tearing down the monstrosity and building something that wasn't designed by an idiot in its place but that's likely too expensive to entertain at the moment.

samatman• 13 years ago

For Bay Areans who would like to experience this phenomenon for yourselves, head on down to Lake Merrit. At the right time of day, the Cathedral of Sauron[1] will send blinding beams of light right into traffic. Fun times.

Also known as the Cathedral of "Christ, my eyes!"

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Christ_the_Light

tingletech• 13 years ago

Never seen that at Christ the light; but 2100 Franklin a couple blocks from there definatly has hot spots pretty much all day from swoopy glass

http://www.loopnet.com/Property-Record/2100-Franklin-Street-...

wmeredith3• 13 years ago

I'm not a religious person, but I would be intrigued to hear Jesus Christ's thoughts on a $190 million church...

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." -Mahatma Gandhi

TsiCClawOfLight2• 13 years ago

That's exactly what's wrong with the catholic church. But there are still faithful people around, only they aren't mainstream for obvious reasons...

riffraff• 13 years ago

You should reflect on the cost of building St Peter, over a period of almost two centuries :)

Sadly once you remove useless structures (mausoleums, temples, celebrations of killed people) cities become rather dull.

joshuahedlund• 13 years ago

There are a lot of Christians who think Jesus might not have been too excited about a $190 million church. But supposing that to be an accurate representation of Jesus' thoughts, like any other group that gets very large, you're going to have lots of nominal members that only nominally seem to exhibit the group's core ideas, despite the fact that they may gather more attention (especially if the core ideas tend to involve things that don't gather as much attention while teaching that everyone is preconditioned to be very bad at being like that, including the nominal members who are - in theory - trying to become more like that)

Dove• 13 years ago

I would be intrigued to hear Jesus Christ's thoughts on a $190 million church

As would we all. But I'll say this, the Christian relationship with money and with power is strange and counterintuitive, and the numbers don't generally add up the way a humanist would want them to. For example, the obvious argument -- that's a lot of money, it could be used to help the poor! -- was tried on Jesus once, and didn't carry much weight:

    Matthew 26:6-13

    While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the 
    Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very 
    expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he 
    was reclining at the table.
    
    When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. “Why 
    this waste?” they asked. “This perfume could have been 
    sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.”
    
    Aware of this, Jesus said to them, “Why are you 
    bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to 
    me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will 
    not always have me. When she poured this perfume on my 
    body, she did it to prepare me for burial. Truly I tell 
    you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the 
    world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of 
    her.”

For a more obvious example, take Jesus' death itself. His ministry lasted a short three years -- imagine what he could have done, what he could have accomplished, had he lived a full life! He could have overseen the founding of his church. Made it as powerful (or not) as he liked. Taught us so much more. Healed so many more people. He gave all of that up, for gains that are . . . suspiciously spiritual in nature.

But that's God's way. It can seem sideways and backwards sometimes if you don't know him, and sometimes even if you do. He seems more interested in what the process of caring for the poor does to people than in absolute increase in worldwide living standards. More interested in what being and seeing a martyr does to people than in saving his devoted servants from the flames. More interested in HOW the problems of this world are overcome -- us AND him, not just one or the other -- than in how fast they are overcome.

That doesn't excuse expensive cathedrals, but it may help explain why the argument about them isn't straightforward. Things are complicated, and not always what they appear. I know "God works in mysterious ways" can be seen as an excuse not to explain anything, but honestly, just the documented ways we already know he's worked are much, much weirder than building something beautiful to inspire key people.

If that all sounds like sophistry, I can't disagree that it kind of is. I myself am critical of robes and trappings and cathedrals. It smells a bit too much like materialism for me, just as icons smell a bit too much like idolatry. I know, Catholics would say it isn't, but I'm still suspicious. I know, God might have his reasons, and he can tell you to do anything he likes, but I still wonder. Are they acting on words of prophecy, or just habits and best intentions?

And then there's the issue of appearances. When the world looks at a $190 million church, do you think they see love for God, a tribute to holiness? I guarantee you they see greed and pride. That's not something to take lightly.

So yeah, I don't approve either . . . but it's complicated.

dkl• 13 years ago

Funny you should mention that building. A few blocks away, there is another that focuses a death ray on the sidewalk:

http://goo.gl/maps/ShZq6

When we have visitors we always walk them by there, if it's sunny, to show them the effect. I don't think, in this case, it's enough to melt car parts, but it's a good 30+F over the ambient temperature.

mrcharles2• 13 years ago

My favorite part of these things is that they highlight the odd things that can go wrong, even when they are considered and planned for. I haven't read this book yet, but the NYT summary makes me feel it would have a lot of info about the crazy things that happen with some engineering and unforeseen issues:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/jun/20/design-...

ianstallings2• 13 years ago

The thing is light is a huge part of architecture. The idea that an architect didn't account for this possibility is insane.

arscan• 13 years ago

What I find the most amazing about this whole thing is that it was designed by the same architect as the "death ray" building in Las Vegas. You would think they would have learned from their mistake.

http://www.businessinsider.com/architect-behind-the-walkie-t...

moomin• 13 years ago

Yeah, it's hard to describe it as unforeseeable when it's happened to you before and is readily modelable.

johnchristopher• 13 years ago

The guardian states this phenomenon is difficult to model: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/shortcuts/2013/sep/0...

mseebach2• 13 years ago

Everything is obvious once you know the answer.

iMark• 13 years ago

I wonder if the differing climates between Las Vegas and London played a part.

ohwp• 13 years ago

Had to think about the same Las Vegas building.

But the Vegas one even has a curve. So there is a potential lethal focal point.

Sensational news item: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-hV_AawLSE

TsiCClawOfLight2• 13 years ago

this one also does..

Roboprog• 13 years ago

Perhaps as a child he had a fatal attraction towards frying ants on sidewalks with lenses?

Irishsteve• 13 years ago

Glass is cool

jessaustin2• 13 years ago

"Within 30 seconds, the back of my legs were burning. My first thought was, 'Jesus, they destroyed the ozone layer!'"

shawn-furyan• 13 years ago

Here's your xenophobic headline: "Uruguayan National Responsible for Construction of Solar Death Rays in Major US and UK Cities"

VladRussian23• 13 years ago

one can only wonder how so many minutiae things can violate building code while a huge death ray building is just fine with the building department.

acomjean2• 13 years ago

My former cube neighbor had a house built into the lot next to hers, really close to her house. The new windows were reflecting the light onto her house and melting the siding. I was skeptical that there was enough energy but it does happen.

The builder ended up replacing some of the windows with somewhat less efficent ones (not Argon Filled).

The windows are designed to reflect heat and UV. http://www.nachi.org/low-e-windows.htm

I can't imagine what a slightly focused light beam would do.

verandaguy• 13 years ago

How long until buildings like this are retrofitted into crowd control weapons?

VLM2• 13 years ago

They already are crowd control weapons. Just not controlled. You probably meant to write aimable weapons.

Not kidding about this either. For example there are ways to design the facade of a building to make wind intensely uncomfortable for pedestrians, thus repelling homeless from the building. This actually works pretty well for a "car culture" building.

Perhaps the goal was merely to make it intensely uncomfortable for pedestrians, to eliminate undesirable foot traffic, panhandlers, etc, but it went a bit too far...

unimpressive• 13 years ago

Not kidding about this either. For example there are ways to design the facade of a building to make wind intensely uncomfortable for pedestrians, thus repelling homeless from the building. This actually works pretty well for a "car culture" building.

Remind me to get this feature for my evil lair.

Considering that this apparently isn't the first time that the Architect has made this mistake, I have to assume either extreme incompetence, or that he got a little too much enjoyment out of burning ants with a magnifying glass as a kid.

pnathan3• 13 years ago

This is your reminder that buildings and software are not that dissimilar. Remember this news article whenever you hear someone blathering about how building software should be more like civil engineering.

acomjean2• 13 years ago

As a former Civil Engineer, I can say that software is not anything like Civil Engineering. The consequences of software failure are (usually) significantly less and oddly you can't practice Civil Engineering in the US without a license.

There are some similarities as they both are designing a building stuff. Software is significantly easier to test however.

jacques_chester2• 13 years ago

On the other hand, we can't just add more code to increase our safety margin.

I read a book[1] about civil & structural engineering that made me think that perhaps we software engineers should stop fetishising what is a quite different, but still quite uncertain, profession.

[1] http://chester.id.au/2013/07/07/review-to-engineer-is-human-...

pnathan3• 13 years ago

Okay, I defer to you. :-)

So there's this meme floating around that software "engineering" needs to be more like "real engineering". "Real Engineering" doesn't make mistakes, has everything planned, is on time, is reliable, etc (don't laugh, OK? This is the meme, not the truth). It's fairly foolish, and I want to point out the reality.

N.b., I personally don't think writing software is engineering (no laws of physics, no experimental results, no materials, no models of behavior - I can go considerably more in depth if someone cares enough to email me); I see it as a craft.

InclinedPlane2• 13 years ago

Software is just as difficult to test because there are combinatorially increasing numbers of possible configurations and interactions in complex systems and software can potentially have an astronomically large number of interacting components.

Additionally, software defects can and do kill people and cause billions of dollars in damage. A bug in the software for the Thorac-25 radiation therapy machine killed 5 people, for example. A bug in the engine control software of a Chinook helicopter led to a crash and the deaths of 29 British soldiers.

During the Cold War software and systems errors almost caused the onset of a full-scale nuclear exchange between the US and USSR at least twice.

It's difficult for consequences to get higher than that.

orblivion• 13 years ago

What are they doing just hanging around frying an egg? They're going to get skin cancer or something.

ccozan2• 13 years ago

Same thing happens also for the GSK building near London. ( http://goo.gl/p8UCit )

ccozan2• 13 years ago

Don't understand the downvoting!

The concave part of the GSK's right building can focus in a relatively small area quite a lot of sun. It is actually impossible to sit in that area in a sunny day, starting May. I got cought while eating a sandwich so I know from my own experience.

ianstallings2• 13 years ago

This is bad architecture, plain and simple. They are paid to account for everything because buildings can't be moved or updated easily without major headaches and expense. The idea that it was an oversight is ridiculous. Not accounting for sunlight in architecture? Unbelievable.

wmeredith3• 13 years ago

This is the second time this architect has done this: http://www.businessinsider.com/architect-behind-the-walkie-t...

MJR• 13 years ago

There was a similar story in NC with energy efficient windows melting vinyl siding on homes: http://www.wncn.com/story/22737381/homeowners-frustrated-by-...

mhartl• 13 years ago

A similar thing happened at Disney Hall in downtown Los Angeles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_Concert_Hall#Reflec...

They fixed it by lightly sanding the reflective surfaces in question.

tarice• 13 years ago

And in Dallas with a new(ish) building:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_Tower_%28Dallas%29#Confl...

Has yet to be fixed.

jcromartie• 13 years ago

"We are taking the issue of light reflecting from 20 Fenchurch Street seriously"

belorn• 13 years ago

Mythbusters can now finally lay to rest the Archimedes death ray myth and super size the experiment. Aiming is going to be a bit hard through.

shabble• 13 years ago

Although originally envisioned in a naval-defence role, I could see it serving as a powerful weapon indeed in the hands of the buccaneers of The Crimson Permanent Assurance[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crimson_Permanent_Assuranc...

troymc• 13 years ago

One fix would be to replace some of the building's windows with a less-reflective material. That means that they'll absorb more light, which would probably mean higher air conditioning costs inside the building.

Another possible fix would be to keep the same windows but to change their normal vectors into a different pattern (random or artistic). This might even look neat, if they do it right.

DanBC• 13 years ago

They could have an extra layer. The outside layer would absorb light, heating the air between in the middle, causing a chimney effect. Put turbines in and they're generating some energy.

This might be stupid, but I'm off-the-cuffing after hearing about seawater greenhouses. (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/sep/02/alternati...)

rachelbythebay• 13 years ago

55 S. Almaden Blvd in San Jose used to have some nice scorch marks in the grass you could easily see in aerial imagery. Now, you have to get clever with the "45 degree" angle stuff, and swing around to a non-default view, but it looks like you can still see it.

Edit: found the original pic: http://blog.collins.net.pr/2007_08_01_archive.html

Blahah• 13 years ago

egads, that's a crappy website. For others who just want to see the photo: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_jmYevHrBr6M/Rr3BvETpHbI/AAAAAAAAAO...

m0tive• 13 years ago

and on google maps: http://goo.gl/maps/FqFdf

NAFV_P• 13 years ago

How about harnessing the energy from this 'fryscraper'; Set up a fast food joint right where those restricted parking spaces are and you don't need an external power source to fry burgers.

adrow• 13 years ago

Apparently someone also predicted this would happen a year ago using a computer model.

http://www.dezeen.com/2013/09/04/cgi-artist-predicted-walkie...

po84• 13 years ago

Two words: Torchwood Tower

cafard• 13 years ago

Then there's the Museum Tower in Dallas: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/arts/design/renzo-pianos-n...

retube• 13 years ago

The cityam newspaper measured 70C on Eastcheap. Apparently shop doors are burning, carpets spontaneosly combusting and roof tiles exploding.

http://www.cityam.com/article/1378168692/exclusive-few-solut...

eksith2• 13 years ago

Did none of the architects, or even construction people, ever stop to consider that they're essentially building two giant, parabolic, solar death rays?

This ties into another pet peeve I have; bloody trees and grass in architectural drawings. It's nice to think you can grow anything at that height and wind, but physics has a tendency not to cooperate with idealized visions.

scott_s• 13 years ago

Article and discussion on that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5436614

eksith2• 13 years ago

Thank you! No I feel better about it. ;)

I have no drawing/structural experience whatsoever, but I'm planning to build a small cabin with a side structure that may have a cool-roof/grass top, but obviously mine will only be 10-12 feet off the ground. While researching for it, I came across all these fantastical designs with no basis on reality. I feel vindicated that the author of the original article has design experience.

I know engineers and architects will never quite see eye-to-eye on how much of their vision can become reality, but they should at least get some practical knowledge before doing these things.

mhandley• 13 years ago

I went over there with the kids this lunchtime - pretty amazing heat focused into the street. Lots of journalists and TV news crews around, including one frying an egg. My youngest son found the heat too much, and ran down the street screaming "I'm burning, I'm burning!", so naturally the press then converged on us...

The funny thing is that the focal point is literally just round the corner from the Monument which indicates where the great fire of London started. What they really need now is a roof of photovoltaic panels along the pavement, and they can really cash in on it.

Here's what it looked like today: https://twitter.com/MarkJHandley/status/375265729060163584/p...

toyg• 13 years ago

That's what I thought: Free energy! Tourist attraction!

But then again, in two weeks we'll be back to grey skies, and we only get a real summer once every decade, so...

awhitty• 13 years ago

Exactly! Why not make it a mini CPV farm?

otikik• 13 years ago

This is clearly fake as the Sun never shines in London.

dreen• 13 years ago

All this time I thought that building is going to be The Shard built upside-down.

corobo• 13 years ago

"In our defence we never thought Britain would get enough sun for it to be a problem"

TomGullen• 13 years ago

Reasonable defence

MartinCron• 13 years ago

Which actually makes me wonder, will some structures become dangerous as the climate changes? I do realize that the angle and intensity of the sunglight will not change, but if a place changes from mostly overcast during a particular time of year to mostly sunny during that same particular kind of year...

balabaster• 13 years ago

I dunno why they don't just put some solar panels down there in that parking space and use the free energy and stop bitching about it... I mean come on people. If a building has the energy to melt a car... could we not somehow use this somehow?

mark-r2• 13 years ago

Wouldn't be worth it for the few days a year it's focused on that one particular spot. If the solar panels could move with the sun, then you'd have something.

tehwalrus• 13 years ago

saw the story about the Jag yesterday, "fryscraper" made me chuckle though :)

javajosh• 13 years ago

People get so incensed that they can't see the silver-lining: build some solar panel covering on the side walk, with a charging station where people can charge up their mobile devices. Alternatively, some enterprising street vendor (do they have those in london?) can focus the light further and sell people solar cooked food.

yashg• 13 years ago

Don't blame the building developers, Tata who own Jaguar might be using parts from Nano in Jaguar :)

thoughtsimple• 13 years ago

Where's Elon? Just put a Tesla solar charging station there.

jenius• 13 years ago

As a crowd of sweating journalists and photographers gathered outside the skyscraper on Tuesday, a reporter even managed to cook an egg simply by placing the frying pan in direct sunlight.

Brilliant hah

Someone• 13 years ago

Actually not that good of a demo. Egg white coagulates at around 65 degrees centigrade, yolk at around 70. On a sunny day, you can easily reach those temperatures without using a mirror to intensify sunlight.

[That temperature difference makes it 'easy' to hard-boil an egg while keeping the yolk fluid. Photos at http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Figure_4.1, some science at http://www.sousvidedash.com/2011/12/the-perfect-fast-cook-so... (quote: "It’s interesting because it illustrates just how critical it is to accurately measure your eggs for this technique. I use a plastic pocket caliper to measure mine.")]

joering2• 13 years ago

The developers said the phenomenon was caused by "the current elevation of the sun in the sky".

Brilliant developer! Blame the sun. But one wonders: if they would have designed this building just like billion other buildings around the world, you know, straight vertical walls, then maybe, maybe the problem wouldn't exist at the first place.

Not sure if I am the only one but buildings designed to show off don't excite me at all.

willyt4• 13 years ago

I'm an Architect and I have worked on large projects in London, although not this one thankfully[0], so I thought people might like to know how the process of designing a building like this works.

A developer hires an international 'starchitect' like Viñoly to design them an office block because the architects reputation for design helps them to get away with a larger building on the site and therefore get more net lettable area for their investment in land.

I don't know anyone who works for Vinoly, I've no idea what it's like to work for him, but I know other people who have worked in similar 'gesture architecture' practices and this is how it usually plays out:

The big boss will do a nice sketch of how he thinks a walkie talkie shaped skyscraper (or whatever shape is in fashion in the office) will fit on the site and then hand it off to a more junior member of staff to solve all the real problems. Meanwhile, he will have to go back to the international lecture/meet/greet circuit that pulls in the jobs and maintains their reputation for world class architecture.

The project team will then usually have a very tight deadline to produce the initial design, probably mostly drawn up by a team of recent architecture graduates who would be pretty low paid[1], and who will almost always end up working very long hours and weekends unpaid overtime to meet the deadline. Where the lead architectural practice is not based in the UK there will also be a local architect who will advise on local regulations, prepare the submissions for planning permission and generally deal with other regulatory authorities.

There will also be a large consultant team on a project of this scale. Probably consisting of two teams of civil engineers; one for superstructure and one for substructure. A geotechnical expert for the foundation design. A whole spread of HVAC engineers, probably separate mechanical, electrical, drainage and ventilation specialists. A facade engineer who specialises in problems specifically to do with the design of the glass cladding system. A fire engineer to design the fire escape strategy and help negotiate the fire fighting strategy with the local fire brigade. A vertical circulation engineer to design the lift and escalator strategy. A bomb blast engineer to model the effects of various bomb attack scenarios on the cladding and structure. A security consultant to advise on how defendable the building is and to design the cctv, active tramp deterrent systems :-( etc. Finally a quantity surveyor will advise on how much this will all cost.

All of these people will have been consulted briefly, probably mostly by video conference, across a couple of time zones, before the planning permission submission[2]. All their requirements have to be juggled between the different disciplines by the architect. As an architect who has done services coordination on skyscrapers and international airports, I can tell you it's not easy. One of the most frustrating things is that engineers from different disciplines don't talk to each other, even if they are working for the same firm. On top of this, the time allowed to prepare the planning submission will be a few months at most, and a lot of the effort will be spent on optimising the design and more importantly the presentation strategy to get through the planning permission process.

Once the planning permission submission has been approved, the overall shape of the scheme is fixed and hence the parabola shape can no longer be designed out. Therefore, if no-one notices a problem like this until after the planning submission, or perhaps fails to get someone higher up to take it seriously enough to change the concept design, then they will have to remedy it by using special anti glare coatings or just plain hoping it wont be too bad. This is for a couple of reasons: because the developer will be exerting large pressure to speed up construction as they will be paying a large amount of interest on the loan for the cost of the land, because consultancy fees to redo the design would be in the order of millions at this point and because getting planning permission for a scheme like this is very politically controversial so you don't risk doing it twice if you can avoid it.

So, you can probably see how something like this could easily have happened.

[0] Because it's pug ugly, not because of the solar death ray thing, that's quite amusing really. [1] Something like £20k per year in London, which is a crap salary after 6 years in University. [2] In the UK this is a semi-democratic consultation process which occurs at local government level and involves publicly presenting the designs to local councillors to give residents of the area a chance to raise a formal objection.

ziel• 13 years ago

I did a short bit of contract work for Viñoly some years ago... and while I can't attest to the entire process you've outlined (I wasn't involved in the architecture stuff), I can attest to the bit about working conditions. The long hours, deep stress, harsh deadlines -- all spot on from what I'd observed.

haraball• 13 years ago

Has working for him in any way helped you landing contracts later?

lambda• 13 years ago

A developer hires an international 'starchitect' like Viñoly to design them an office block because the architects reputation for design helps them to get away with a larger building on the site and therefore get more net lettable area for their investment in land.

Ah. I've always wondered why people pay "starchitects" to design horrible, hideous, poorly designed buildings. I've always figured that they were paying more to get something of worse quality, but figured that people were paying the premium just to be in vogue.

The reputation allowing them to get away with a bigger building on the same plot of land is a new explanation to me, and makes lots of sense.

dsuth2• 13 years ago

Ah. I've always wondered why people pay "starchitects" to design horrible, hideous, poorly designed buildings. I've always figured that they were paying more to get something of worse quality, but figured that people were paying the premium just to be in vogue.

"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every 6 months" -- Oscar Wilde

ballard2• 13 years ago

More expense is a bragging right and a substitute for thinking.

RFP should due-diligence recent projects to be sure they're not cutting corners. Also, shopping around for better results/value elsewhere.

(It makes you want to guard good value/$ firms that aren't big names.)

HCIdivision17• 13 years ago

Thanks for the insight! In retrospect, it certainly has the feel of a project that was too expensive to fix, so we'll patch/deal with it if it comes up. It certainly happens - high quality is time consuming and expensive, and it's easy to forget how risks allow us to do more for less (with a chance of occasional death-ray).

That said, what is the likelihood the form will be held to pay out in some way for this (say, either in replacing the glass wall or installing retractable shade awnings across the neighborhood)?

Tone edit: I certainly don't mean the project looks poorly done. Just that a fix would have required such a substantial redesign as to be prohibitively expensive compared to just hoping for the best.

marcosdumay• 13 years ago

I like that phrase: "The developers said the phenomenon was caused by "the current elevation of the sun in the sky", and that as Britain heads into autumn the problem should disappear."

There is a WONTFIX implicit in there. Who cares if it becomes a death-ray a few days each year?

This shouldn't even be too expensive to patch. They just need to change the covering of the windows.

kghose2• 13 years ago

It's funny, but that sounds EXACTLY like a high profile research lab! The more I look, the more different professions seem to be the same in terms of principles of work.

chubot• 13 years ago

Yeah it sounds like a lot of things. Human behavior in groups is kinda predictable. Part of it has to do with knowledge assymetry. Researchers and architects generally know more than their customers, so they have a lot of latitude to "sell".

cli• 13 years ago

Could you please expand on this, or suggest some links so that I can learn more about how high profile research labs work.

nkoren• 13 years ago

I'm an ex-architect -- or, more accurately, a recovering architect: it's like an addiction in that way -- and I have to say that you really do know what you are talking about here. My sympathies!

(Although I'm far from enthralled by this building, I have to say that it actually looks better than I expected it to based on the utterly fugly renderings from a while ago. I can't imagine how it got through planning consent based on those.)

willyt4• 13 years ago

I'm fine. The practice I used to work for treated people very well compared to other 'names', the big boss was very nice and would listen to your opinions in a design discussion, they're not all bad. I do my own thing now though, which is nice :-)

jsingleton• 13 years ago

I used to work next to where this was built and the site was empty for ages. I imagine it got delayed due to money trouble at the time. They would have had a lot longer than usual to think about potential problems.

8ig8• 13 years ago

So this sounds like standard practice, how then does someone break out to become a Starchitect?

BTW, thank you for the behind the scenes detail. I love learning how sausage is made.

porker• 13 years ago

active tramp deterrent systems :-(

I always wondered how buildings avoided becoming homes and sleeping areas. Can you give some insight into what is done? I'd assumed it was passive and all about locking every service entrance.

Great original post btw!

rjsw• 13 years ago

The death ray is the active tramp deterrent system.

undoware• 13 years ago

It's not just sunlight. A building that widens as it goes up will also focus wind. The effects are a bit more 'wave' than 'particle' - no beams, just constructive interference - but the principle is the same.

This reminds me so much of University of Illinois at Chicago. Most of the humanities are housed in this gigantic concrete monolith that widens as it went up, supposedly to represent the 'city of broad shoulders'. But ironically, it better captured the 'windy city' -- we'd fight yard-long patches of gale-force wind that would appear out of nowhere and steal your papers. "The architecture ate my homework" was a not unheard-of excuse -- and one that as a TA I actually honored on one occasion.

michaelwww• 13 years ago

My first thought was that the mysterious WIFI outage that the London stock exchange suffers once a day and this building were somehow connected, but they're a mile apart so I don't see how.

Link (I'm not a subscriber) http://www.economist.com/news/international/21582288-satelli...

Discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6123535

shavenwarthog2• 13 years ago

Steward Brand has a documentary and book on "How Buildings Learn". A building isn't made for architects, it's for people to use, and people over time are going to use their building for different, often very different things. Even such trivial things like "roof shouldn't leak" can be handwaved around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvEqfg2sIH0

biot• 13 years ago

Obviously the designer hasn't read Arthur C. Clarke's "Stroke of the Sun" short story (also known as "A Slight Case of Sunstroke"). It's well worth the five minute read:

http://www.archive.org/stream/Galaxy_Magazine_Volume_16_Numb...

tallpapab2• 13 years ago

Ha! Great story. My favorite line: "It's hard nowadays to find an honest man who stays bought."

tallpapab2• 13 years ago

So I had this clever little comment worked out. I was going to say that a formula for designing a unique building - and, hence, gaining a star reputation - would be to pick a design that everyone else knows has a fatal flaw. That way no others like it would have been built. But, reading the comments I see that this exact mistake has been made more than once. So much for theory.

yaw• 13 years ago

This principle is being used to generate power in Souther Spain. The system is described as a Concentrated Solar Thermal Power plus Molten Salt Storage (CSP+)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemasolar

bjz_• 13 years ago

Sixty symbols has just published a video discussing the physics behind this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ1Hgzi2ElQ

Glare from London 'fryscraper' blamed for melting cars

Related Stories