Glare from London 'fryscraper' blamed for melting cars | Hacker News Reader

Glare from London 'fryscraper' blamed for melting cars

news.yahoo.com

268 pointsdsr12206 comments

"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.

"But what abou-"

"ONCE AND FOR ALL!"

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.

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.

>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.

Any kid with a magnifying class can tell you what curved class can do with light. My point was that if building projects take in account which way the sun will move in the sky, then they should take into account what the sun might do when it hits the building.

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

You are very right and I dont see how they might have foreseen this. It is quite unusual for the windows on a building to start melting cars, especially in a mild climate like London. The fact remains that if it can mess a Jaguar up what happens when the sun rays are concentrated into a flat across the street that may have a small child or elderly person who may not be to leave the room when it starts getting hot.

>You are very right and I dont see how they might have foreseen this.

as it was already mentioned this architect had already built death ray building in Las Vegas

>It is quite unusual for the windows on a building to start melting cars, especially in a mild climate like London.

Sun's potential energy flux on the Earth's surface, be it Las Vegas or London, is 1KWt per m2 of the surface _perpendicular_ to the flux. So given clear day and good angle (close to perpendicular) of a building to the Sun's light, the building will be beaming back significant part of that 1KWt/m2.

If the car is hotter to begin with because of the air temperature around it then the melting point on a component of the car will be reached faster. So if it was in a much hotter place like Las Vegas where the sun shines a majority of the time I could see things like this happening more often.

Instead of mild I should've said rainy or cloudy place like London.

A minor point, it's at its peak of 1kWm-2 when the sunlight is perpendicular to the Earth, that is, when the sun is directly overhead, because that's when it has to pass through the least atmosphere. Sunlight reflecting off the building where the sun is not directly overhead will necessarily be less intense.

A minor point, the direct peak intensity is not 1 kWm^-2 at AM 1. AM1.5G is the standard spectrum and it is acquired at an oblique angle of 48.2 degrees from zenith. It is typically normalized to 1 kWm^-2 due to the inherent variability encountered when actually trying to measure these things.

Er, yeah, that's kind of the point :)

For London in Autumn/Winter will have a surface normal of z~=60-70 degrees to the Sun. Much greater than 48.2 degrees, so the peak insolation must necessarily be less than 1kWm-2.

SI pedantic, I know, but: What in the name of Tesla is a KWt? Perchance you meant KW?

yazmeya: your account appears as [dead] (aka hellbanned).

Except anyone who's gone through high school can tell you that s exactly what a parabola does - it concentrates the sun in a specific point.

Had they used a hyperbolic shape or essentially any other curve, this problem wouldn't happen and the building would still look the same to the casual observer.

You don't need a exact parabola. You can get almost the same effect with a spherical mirror. Almost all the rays converge to the focus point, but there is some aberration. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_aberration

The same effect is possible to obtain with a hyperbola. A "small" section of a hyperbola is very similar to a small section of a circle that is very similar to a small section of a parabola. With any similar curve you get a "focus" point. Some are better to concentrate the rays in a small area and produce more heating there.

They should have calculated where this point is and be sure that wherever the sun is, the point is allways bellow the earth surface, so they get a big lighted area in the floor. (Another possibility is to put the "focus" in the middle of the air and hope that no one notice the roasted birds.)

No, it's a very measured and pragmatic response. It even struck me as something an engineer would write.

You know the old joke about the engineer and the hot-air balloon?

http://www.poeticexpressions.co.uk/poems/Engineer%20v%20Mana...

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.

What special status do they hold?

I believe they are referring to REIT status, but the relevance is not clear.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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...

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

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

It may be difficult to model precisely what will happen because of the little fiddly sub-millimeter differences in window positions mattering. It is not difficult to understanding that a generally concave surface facing the sun is very likely to have some sort of significant problem. To the extent that the exact result is hard to model, simple engineering prudence would suggest the "'Doctor, it hurts when I do this.' 'Don't do that then.'" response.

Yeah, this really seems...kind of obvious. A concave reflective surface will focus any light source, and in particular, the sun.

Whatever the guardian says, it's a very basic optics problem, and not at all difficult to model. It's mostly a matter of whether or not anyone bothers to do it.

In terms of difficulty, it's one step harder than modeling which direction something will fall if someone drops it off your building.

Well except you have to model the position of the sun for every hour and day of the year, but sure other than that just like it.

And the position of the sun relative to the building is also a simple formula based on time of year. Given that this is the country that gave us freakin' Stone Henge you have to expect that someone remembered that there is a formula to predict exactly where the sun will be relative to a spot in England every day of the year. The clever ones actually used that to tell them what day it was since they couldn't be bothered to invent the wrist watch.

The position of the sun is very easy to predict, 90% of the time, in England: it's behind the clouds!

* this summer being an exception!

Yes - apparently it'll be 2020 before we see a summer like this again, though.

upvoted for Stonehenge reference.

Or you could use a simple rule of thumb. Something like, "Let's not build skyscrapers that are giant parabolic reflectors aimed at things of value (people, cars, other buildings, etc.)"

This seems like a really stupid mistake to make. TWICE.

...or you could put the concave side on the North. That also solves the problem.

Then you build one in the southern hemisphere. Oops!

In the southern hemisphere everything is upside down too, so the rays would reflect off into the atmosphere, I expect.

> Well except you have to model the position of the sun for every hour and day of the year

That sounds exactly like some things xkcd has done in the "what if?" series. He's done all sorts of variations on similar calculations.

And while xkcd is smart, he's not superhumanly so (his fame is due to the unique combination of creative thinking, humour, geekery and smarts).

In other words, this is possible and a good engineer should be able to calculate this. Especially when you know that any concave reflective surface is going to focus the light somewhere. In addition you know that due to the movements of the sun during the day and the year, this focal point will in 3D to different positions. So yes, odds are that it's going to hit some spot, somewhere, where it's going to be able to do damage, at some point during the year. Then you get to make a simple risk calculation about expected strength of sunlight that time of the year.

And then you will remember to realize that over the course of the lifetime of this building, climate always has a non-zero probability of powerful outliers[0], and the conclusion is:

Simply don't build gigantic concave mirrors in residential areas.

[0] I'm not 100% sure if this is the case for strength of sunlight, since it's mainly dependent on what angle the sunlight arrives, which is not really up to chance. Still, even in the winter when the sun is quite low, as long as the sky is clear, I can easily light an incense stick with an A4-size fresnel lens. And I guess a whole building-side has a "slightly" bigger margin of how narrow the point of focus needs to be.

In which case, it is much simpler.

To work out where an object will fall, you have to model the path of various objects of all shapes, masses and densities with wind of all strengths and directions (including shifting and gusting winds), and considering the original orientation of the object, and any spin placed on it at point of release (in three axes).

Just working out the angles at which light from a distant ball of fire will hit a surface should be a piece of cake. You could probably do it pretty easily for every point (assuming a certain size of point) at that distance at which it isn't completely hidden, just in case the planet suddenly changes its orientation.

I bet a modern calculating machine could run through all of the permutations in no more than a couple of weeks!

Deleted comment

No way, it would be near instantaneous. Position of the sun in the sky is really trivial stuff. Hell, don't even bother, just use this: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/AltAz.php

I gotta know, what did that comment say?

Something about it taking a few hours.

Wikipedia apparently has a pretty nice page on calculating the position of the Sun if anybody is interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Position_of_the_Sun It's basically a lot of trig and a bunch of constants; pretty neat. Interestingly the information given on that page is only valid for a shorter timeframe than the information given on the USNO page.

That's not particularly computationally intensive.

So what? People have been doing that for centuries using almanacs. And with computers that sort of thing becomes stupidly simple. IIRC that functionality is even built in to Google Sketchup.

It's not - given an accurate geometry model and reflective window material, it'd be really easy to use a raytracer to test this:

* Renderers like Maxwell handle caustics nicely, and you could get away with rough photon-mapping (instead of time-consuming but very accurate MLT)

* Most renderers have very accurate physical sky light models which accurately model the intensity and position of the sun in the sky based on time of day and long/lat coords.

It'd be easy to python script a run of renders for each minute in the day (10 seconds for a render) over the next 5 years and then run an analysis of the rendered image for intensity on the ground. Just set the ground material to not be lit by any diffuse GI rays or direct lighting, and it would literally just render out the reflected sun on the ground (or off other buildings if you wanted to do it REALLY accurately).

It'd be time consuming and CPU intensive to do the rendering for all that: 2,630,880 renders for each minutes for 5 years, but you could probably work out an envelope you could skip (definitely the night time) after doing the first year.

7308 hours render time for the full 24-hour period for 5 years. But do-able, and very parallel over multiple machines.

You can do it on the back of an envelope. Radius of curvature sets the focal length and the min and max elevations of the sun are set by your latitude. If there's any elevation between the min and max where the reflection will hit the ground even close to the focal length of the building, you will have a problem.

It's the same optics calculations anyone designing a concentrating solar power system would do, and while you need to be careful if you want accurate answers, it's not complicated to see if it has the slightest chance of working.

You know, indirect lighting surely doesn't melt plastic, so you absolutely don't need Metropolis Light Transport here. And also you don't need to use photon maps. The computations to map the intensity of specular reflections from the building's windows would the equivalent to creating a photon map on a scene, not using the photon map to render a complete scene.

> You know, indirect lighting surely doesn't melt plastic ...

That depends on the light's intensity. If with the term "indirect" you include specular and diffuse reflection, then yes, in the right circumstances, the energy level can be spectacularly high.

But computer simulations need to be done very carefully, because the issue isn't visible light reflection, it's infrared reflection. For the building in question, the windows are glazed with a coating meant specifically to pass visible light to the interior but reflect infrared radiation (both to preserve building heat in the winter and reject heat in the summer).

What that means is that, as bad as the reflected visible glare seems to those passing by, the infrared energy levels are much higher, and easily explain the damage.

> If with the term "indirect" you include specular

But you don't. "lighting in which the light emitted by a source is diffusely reflected" (merriam-webster.com)

In normal computer graphics speak, indirect lighting means light that has had at least one diffuse reflection on its path.

What? It's the indirect reflection of the sun, specularly reflected (and focused) off the building.

You need the light source (sun) reflected onto the ground (or whereever it's reflected) from off the building.

You can't use standard path-tracing / ray tracing for that, as that traces rays from the camera outwards, and wouldn't show the caustics (well, you might be lucky and get one or two fireflies, but that wouldn't be the result needed for analysis).

At the very least, you'd need BDPT. Photon mapping would be a much faster (but cruder) solution.

Basically what you're saying is you need classic ray-tracing from light sources, such as one can get with Pov-Ray and similar old-school ray-tracing programs.

Well, I'd define classic as standard "from camera" outwards.

POV Ray does classic (which won't give you what you need as it doesn't handle caustics) or photon mapping which will.

Bi-directional path tracing (tracing rays from both the camera and lights in the scene and joining the respective light paths in the middle), and Metropolis Light Transport (a progressive variation of BDPT) are the most accurate, but are often slow to converge to a noise-free result, mainly due to the fact they do handle caustics (reflections of bright light focal patterns) accurately, which introduces noise (over the standard GI noise).

But photon mapping would give reasonable results in a few seconds.

> Well, I'd define classic as standard "from camera" outwards.

Fair enough. I was thinking of optical ray tracing, not graphic ray tracing. In optical ray tracing the point is to analyze the paths of light beams through lenses and from mirrors, not the POV of a camera necessarily.

I've been able to get pretty useful optical ray tracing out of Pov-Ray:

http://www.arachnoid.com/raytracing/csg.html (note the animation toward the bottom of the page).

Yeah, I work in the VFX industry, so I'm a bit biased :)

Cool - actually, that would be a lot less computationally expensive (assuming you just modelled the sun as a disc) tracing it backwards without any GI at all. Photon mapping's pretty similar though, you've just got a final gather process at the end of sending out the light rays. The difference is photon mapping records all the hits to all surfaces. If you limited it to specular ones (at least for the first ray bounce) you'd probably have something very similar.

This is what I tried to say 5 or 6 messages ago, when I first replied to you.

> What? It's the indirect reflection of the sun, specularly reflected

I am pretty sure the standard use of "indirect lighting" in normal computer graphics jargon means light that has had at least one diffuse reflection on its path. Even Merriam-Webster lists this meaning [1].

You'd just need to run the ray-tracing from light sources algorithm, to map the intensity of the specular reflection of the building. This would be equivalent to just creating the photon map. Then you could just view the photon map directly, to see the intensity of the death ray. There would be no need to render the scene (although you could, if you wanted a photorealistic view).

[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/indirect%20lightin...

Everything is obvious once you know the answer.

This is true, and we often forget it. But since they knew the answer after the Las Vegas building, the risk that this might happen should have been obvious.

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

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

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

this one also does..

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.

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

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

Glass is cool

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...

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...

Exactly! Why not make it a mini CPV farm?

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

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

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.

Well, the divine part is lost on me, but when I think of the churches, cathedrals and convents of my country (Portugal), I can't help but be glad that our kings did decide to pay for their construction; they're just fantastic works of art.

And in a way, it protects them from destruction; even as we become less religious (and we are), we still pay a lot to conserve and restore them, which I doubt would happen if they were just four blank walls and a cross.

That said, I have some doubts the above mentioned cathedral will be regarded anywhere near our Manueline monasteries in centuries to come.

These issues are also examined at great length in a fictional context in The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.

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.

New York City has some impressive semi-useful structures. My two favorites are part of the subway system.

One of them is just this impressively massive railway arch going over the end of the N-line. It's kind of like the five-layer interchanges on highways. You've got a normal city street, and above it, an elevated subway line, and above it a freight train tracks going cross-ways. It's like one of those multi-layered highway interchanges, but you can just walk right in and see it up close at 0 mph.

The other one is something similar at I think the Smith & 9th street stop in Brooklyn. You've got a canal, with a drawbridge that lifts straight up to let ships through. And then above THAT is a subway station. You're standing on this subway platform, and it looks completely normal, like any other platform in the city. And then you look behind you and you're five stories up or so.

They're impressive engineering feats, and also a little bit extravagant. They could have moved the pieces around quite easily to avoid building such large and expensive and difficult structures, but for whatever reason (bureaucracy? union graft? the architect was a little cracked? because fuck you, that's why?) they decided to go out of their way and build something which would be a wonder if it weren't so mundane.

I disagree. Certain useless structures can be pretty cool, but they get boring quickly. The most interesting cities are those built around a variety of useful structures.

For example, what makes Venice really cool (IMO, of course) is not just the fact that there are canals and boats everywhere, but that these are all fundamental parts of the everyday lives of the citizenry. The canals and boats aren't useless touristic scenery, but are how the city works.

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)

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...

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.

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-...

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...

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.

> 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.

>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

That explains my grandparents remodeled their bathrooms every 6 months. (Yup, I guess that makes 'em hipsters.)

The way around hipster discontent is to stop caring; the only person you have to impress is yourself.

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.)

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.)

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 :-)

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.

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".

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

In general high profile labs get there by having high through put (lots of experiments, lots of papers). The lab PI becomes a publicity guy, giving lots of lectures and wheeling and dealing with funding agencies. The actual bench work is done by postdocs and graduate students. Many labs begin to resemble departments with the PI as chairperson. But not in a good way. The PI loses touch with the science, no longer fulfills their role as mentor to an apprentice and the quality of the work is a crapshoot - depending entirely on postdocs. The PI becomes a brand.

Exactly my experience. The PI hops from one grant or consulting contract to another before the work on the previous grants and contracts is complete, and you as the postdoc or research assholeciate find yourself called into another meeting to produce something completely unrelated to the several projects that each require your full-time attention, on a schedule determined without your input. The PI has made unrealistic promises to funding agencies and clients without consulting you. It now is your job to produce on short notice. This is partly due to the grant-driven nature of the work, but personalities also play a role.

Intellectuals are driven out; mental technicians remain.

My experience is even worse. I was drafted to do system and network administration and helpdesk application support--in the PI's mind these were indistinguishable from software development--as well as the research and software development for which I was hired. As I could not afford the endless dues paying, I left.

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.

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

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.

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.

> 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!

The death ray is the active tramp deterrent system.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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...

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

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.

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...

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.

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

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

Reasonable defence

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...

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.

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.

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.

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-...

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.

Software is definitely engineering for real time and safety applications. Consider aerospace software that keeps planes flying, drive-by-wire systems, and power plant software

I've done SW for real-time & safety critical systems. Things are heavily tilted towards "Quality" in the "quality fast cheap" triangle there, but at the end of the day, it's still:

- unit tests

- functional tests

- code reviews

- automated analysis tools

I have a real hard time saying that this is engineering when it can be done by anyone who has the internal discipline to do it carefully.

More pertinently, I don't believe that there's any experimental basis to demonstrate software's correctness for a task a priori. E.g., I (or actually a more competent mechanical engineer) can develop a model for a table and demonstrate that given x,y,z constraints the table will hold; attaining x,y,z constraints requires using a,b,c kinds of materials. This all before the table has been built, based on fundamental laws of physics and observed qualities of materials from the field of material science. Computer science research (in broad strokes) is generally devoted to determining existence or other qualities of algorithms for tasks, or demonstrating really spiffy and unthought capabilities of computers given extant algorithms and hardware. This does not generate the basis for building materials for programs: this generates tools and other capabilities to shape the software. I am not knocking CS research - it's valuable when done well. But I have a hard time seeing how CS research provides the same type of foundation that, say, chemistry research provides.

What I think I am saying is that formal sciences don't lead to engineering the same way natural sciences do: the application is qualitatively and distinctly different, and not simply in degree or seriousness.

Disagreements are invited.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

What, you mean like the civil engineer who designed the wobbly bridge? [0] Even though the phenomenon of synchronised footsteps causing large oscillations due to positive feedback is well enough known that there is another bridge in London built over 150 years earlier which has a sign on it saying 'Soldiers marching across this bridge must break step'.

I don't like the 'walkie talkie' and I'm not a fan of gesture architects like Vinoly, Libeskind, Ghery etc. But, there are plenty of other far less obtuse critiques of this kind of architecture than 'GOD you forgot to model the solar rays on the 3rd of September 2013, you IDIOT!!!'.

People do make mistakes, including engineers. And, by the way, the engineer who designed the wobbly bridge is still very highly regarded in the profession.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Bridge,_London

Edit: corrected grammar and moved sentence to clarify.

Making the mistake once is forgivable, but twice? After all the press from his previous parabolic building, you'd think he'd give it a second thought!

Shouldn't the building require a review by the engineers after it is designed by the architect ?

Yes, in fact the cladding system will have been designed by specialist facade engineers, so they are probably at least partly to blame for this.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

I think I've spotted a problem!

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

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?

- 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.

Yes, it's a serious question. My point is that this is not a "complicated" mistake. It's a very, very simple mistake. You're building a curved, reflective surface. First question should be, "what happens when the sun hits it?"

Edit: as another commenter pointed out, this isn't even the first time this architect has designed a building that burns things by focusing the sun: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6327766

Still think my question is bad? Still think this is a "complicated" mistake?

Why do you think that they didn't think about it? That's pretty silly.

I'm guessing that you haven't built tall buildings before (I certainly haven't) but it seems perfectly plausible to me that precautions were taken (coating/shape/etc.) but for various unexpected reasons they were insufficient.

Smart people make big things and big things can have big mistakes.

It's sad that its so easy for some people to invent unintelligent straw-men to mock in internet comments.

There's simply no room for the scenario you're proposing. The math of curved reflectors is reasonably simple. What kind of "unexpected reasons" could possibly cause this problem?

Maybe this guy did think about it. Maybe he's not stupid? But that's worse for him, because it means he knew what would happen and didn't care.

This is on about the same level as dropping a piano from the top of the building and crushing whatever was below at the time. It's so basic that there's no way to say that it was unforeseeable, so either the person dropping the piano failed to think about gravity, or they didn't care about the damage they did.

Maybe this guy did think about it.

I'm sure the guy _DID_ think about it, as he was the one that architected the "death ray" building in Las Vegas, as pointed out further up the thread

And the crescent-shaped Vdara Hotel and Spa in Las Vegas, designed – astonishingly – by the same architect as the Walkie Talkie, was briefly known as "Death Ray Hotel" when it opened in 2009 after guests complained a 15 sq m area of the pool deck was hot enough to singe their hair and melt plastic.

- http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/shortcuts/2013/sep/0...

That's... wow that's a really naive idea of how engineering works. You think that you do a few sin's and cos's and then mistakes just can't happen? That stuff you did in middle-school? I guess civil engineering really needs you.

Why are you referring to a singular "this guy"? I hope you understand that the design an construction of a skyscraper involves more than one person at every step.

I'm not sure why you are floating the conspiracy theory stuff - I really hope that's some kind of straw-man you're trying to pull, because otherwise... seek help.

I never said mistakes can't happen. I said that this mistake is an elementary one that should not have happened. Some mistakes are complex and hard. This mistake was trivial. Doubly trivial in that the guy who made the mistake already did it at least once before.

I am referring to a singular "this guy" because there's an architect, "this guy", who designed the building. He determined the shape. The shape caused the problem. Yes, there's an army of people involved in the details, but the shape was one guy.

What "conspiracy theory stuff" are you talking about?

Sigh. There is not one architect that designed the building (even if one gets his name on for publicity reasons - there is a team.) The architect is also only one part of the process - I sure hope you know that they don't actually implement their designs.

The "conspiracy theory stuff" is the "But that's worse for him, because it means he knew what would happen and didn't care." part. That was an extremely ignorant comment to make.

I'm happy that you think its a simple mistake, but you don't have the credentials to claim that. Middle school math doesn't cut it.

Do you have the credentials, or are you simply arguing on the same base I am?

Most software bugs are, when described to the layman after the fact, pretty elementary, but at least structural engineers usually don't insist the software architect that wrote the initial specs for a project must have been stupid when the version the outsourced dev team releases crashes under certain input parameters.

The software equivalent of this mistake would be spending millions of dollars building software targeting Linux when the customer needs to run it on Windows. It's not "certain input parameters", it's obvious environmental conditions that should have been considered at the outset.

I would really like one of the naysayers in this thread to describe to me exactly how a mistake like this gets reasonably made. I keep getting replies saying that there are good reasons why something like this would happen, but nobody has actually given me one.

There are no confounding factors in this case that invalidate the freshman physics calculation that tells you that this building design will melt things or light them on fire. There is no excuse for not doing said calculations when designing a curved glass building, especially when you already made the mistake on a previous building you designed. And there is no conceivable way you thought you mitigated the problem while actually failing to do so in a reasonable fashion.

As another person with rather more knowledge of architectural design processes pointed out in great detail on this page, the group that designs the facade is not the same as the group that models its behaviour under certain conditions, which is not the same as the group that makes the final decision on the tinting of glass panels, which is not the group that erects it to surprisingly imprecise tolerances.

We're not talking about something obvious like Linux vs Windows. We're talking about something which is superficially obvious like integers can exceed X digits ...where the actual integers are the product of a decidely non-obvious set of calculations intended to generate low values but affected by code several specialist teams have commit privileges to.

We're talking about a very slight degree of concavity on part of a large facade focuses the sun's rays for two hours a day, two weeks a year provided the surface material is sufficiently reflective and London has less than its median 68% cloud cover for September. And we're also talking about a building that isn't finished yet: here's an architect's rendering of the offending facade that appears to have ridges the current sheer shiny wall doesn't http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?um=1&safe=off&client=firefox-...

It's not like either glass facades with some degree of concavity are unusual or being singed by them is common. Unlike database errors those stupid developers keep coming up with.

n.b I don't even like the building; it's fugly from where I'm sitting. I'm going sunbathing there tomorrow though.

Except it's not "non-obvious" at all, but highly obvious.

The people who designed the facade are not the same group that models the behavior under certain conditions? Well, that's apparently stupid, and somebody in the first group should have said, hey, where does this thing focus sunlight?

At some point, somebody drew a giant curved reflective surface and failed to consider what it would do to the sunlight. That is dumb. I don't see any way around that.

What kind of "unexpected reasons" could possibly cause this problem?

Perhaps they did a simulation but there was a bug in the software?

If you read the article on the Las Vegas building, you'll see that they expected some kind of window coating to counteract the problem but found after the fact that it didn't work.

There are 1000 different reasons why the actual outcome might not match up with initial projections. I think it's naive to assume that they didn't think about the problem at all.

Edit: after reading some of the other comments, perhaps I'm the naive one. Interesting thread.

The window coating explanation makes no sense. You test that on individual panes before installing them and see how much light it really absorbs. Either the coating underperformed, in which case they should have caught it, or the coating performed to specification but wasn't specified to block enough light, in which case they should have caught it.

I'd like to know at least one of these "1000 different reasons" why this could happen. Because I can't think of a single one, and nobody else has given me any....

     I'd like to know at least one of these "1000 different reasons" why this could happen. Because I can't think of a single one, and nobody else has given me any....

You would have to ask someone who does this for a living. iOS and Rails developers are not qualified to speculate. Next time you ask "how stupid could they be?" the answer is "smarter than I am, apparently".

On what basis do you make that statement, exactly? Nearly all architects go their entire career without building structures that concentrate the sun into a point hot enough to melt things. This architect has done it twice now. Sounds like he is doing something wrong, not that this is a problem inherent to the field.

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!

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...

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...

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.

Inner city solar power plant!

Especially if the building is going to be curved!

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.

And in Dallas with a new(ish) building:

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

Has yet to be fixed.

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

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-...

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

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.

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...)

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...

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

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.

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.

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?"

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.

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.

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.

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

> 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.

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.

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-...

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

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?

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.

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

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

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.")]

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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...

>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.

Two words: Torchwood Tower

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

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

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

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