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Accidental Solar Furnace Offices & Buildings

rynner2

rynner2

Gone But Not Forgotten
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If you can't stand the heat, don't park here: 8)

'Walkie-Talkie' skyscraper melts Jaguar car parts

A new London skyscraper dubbed the "Walkie Talkie" has been blamed for reflecting light which melted parts of a car parked on a nearby street.
Martin Lindsay parked his Jaguar on Eastcheap, in the City of London, on Thursday afternoon.
When he returned about two hours later, he found parts of his car - including the wing mirror and badge - had melted. :shock:

Mr Lindsay said he "could not believe" the damage. The developers have apologised and paid for repairs.
The 37-storey skyscraper at 20 Fenchurch Street, which has been nicknamed the "Walkie Talkie" because of its shape, is currently under construction.

Mr Lindsay, director of tiling company Moderna Contracts Ltd, said: "I was walking down the road and saw a photographer taking photos and asked, 'what's happening?'
"The photographer asked me 'have you seen that car? The owner won't be happy.'
"I said: 'I am the owner. Crikey, that's awful.'"
The wing mirror, panels and Jaguar badge had all melted, Mr Lindsay said.

"You can't believe something like this would happen," he added. "They've got to do something about it.
"It could be dangerous. Imagine if the sun reflected on the wrong part of the body.
"On the windscreen, there was a note from the construction company saying 'your car's buckled, could you give us a call?'"

In a joint statement, developers Land Securities and Canary Wharf said: "We are aware of concerns regarding the light reflecting from 20 Fenchurch Street and are looking into the matter.
"As a precautionary measure, the City of London has agreed to suspend three parking bays in the area which may be affected while we investigate the situation further."

Mr Lindsay said the developers had apologised and agreed to sort out the £946 repair costs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23930675

Hmm! More education in optics needed for architects. Plus education in astronomy to understand where these focal points will occur throughout the year! :twisted:
 
Light amplified by the zimulated emission of radiation.
 
Do we need skyscrapers? Weve done well enough without them for so many years.

it would be a shame if London started to look like a third world capital.
 
There's more!

Walkie-Talkie skyscraper to have screen put up to stop rays

A temporary screen is to be put up outside the "Walkie-Talkie" to try and prevent the sun's rays which reflect from the skyscraper causing damage.
The 37-storey building in the City of London is said to have started fires and caused damage to nearby businesses.
It is said to have not only melted parts of a Jaguar, but also blistered paintwork and caused tiles to fall.

Developers Land Securities and Canary Wharf said the scaffold screen would be erected at street level.
"This solution should minimise the impact on the local area over the next two to three weeks, after which time the phenomenon is expected to have disappeared," they added.
[But it will reappear in Spring and September next year, you twonks!]

The £200m building on 20 Fenchurch Street, which has been nicknamed the "Walkie-Talkie" because of its shape, is currently under construction.
Experts say they believe the fires start because the reflections of sunlight bounce off the building's curved windows and all converge at one point, concentrating the light.

Ali Akay, of nearby Re Style barber's, said the position of the sun at a certain time of the day caused a searing bolt of sunlight to start a small fire and burn a hole in his company doormat.
"We were working and just saw the smoke coming out of the carpet. We tried to cut the fire down, there were customers in at the time and they were obviously not happy," he said.
"Customers are not going to come in if there is a fire in the front of the door."

Mr Akay, 22, said they had spoken to the managers of 20 Fenchurch Street to find a solution.
"It is getting really serious. This is a health and safety issue. They should have looked into this before they built it," he added.
Colleague Ayca Juma, 29, said: "It's the Walkie Scorchie. That's what caused this."

Next door at the Viet Cafe, Diana Pham, 25, said they had suffered similar problems.
"Yesterday it was very hot so there was a concentration of light here.
"We thought something was burning in the restaurant but it wasn't. we searched everywhere. Then a customer came in and showed us.
"A tile suddenly broke, the paint has bobbled too."

On Monday, Martin Lindsay who had parked his Jaguar on Eastcheap, told BBC London the reflected rays had melted his car's wing mirror, panels and Jaguar badge.

The developers and Canary Wharf said they had also closed three parking bays in the area which may be affected.
A joint statement added: "We are also continuing to evaluate longer-term solutions to ensure this issue does not recur in future."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23948811
 
And they thought it was a simple, harmless office block hahahahaha.
 
What’s frying at Walkie Scorchie?
A London skyscraper is creating a 70C beam of sunlight, melting cars and burning nearby shops
[3 m video]
By Harry Wallop
9:30PM BST 03 Sep 2013

London’s skyline has a new addition this week: the Walkie Scorchie. Joining the crowded group of glass protrusions, such as the Shard, the Gherkin, and the Cheesegrater, is 20 Fenchurch Street, which had previously been known as the Walkie Talkie, on account of it looking vaguely like a gigantic two-way radio.

But the 37-storey office block, due to be completed next year, has gained a new sinister reputation: the death ray, the fryscraper, the Walkie Scorchie.
Its south-facing concave facade conspires to concentrate and reflect the sun’s rays into an intense beam of shimmery light, hitting the buildings on the opposite side of the road. Along a 30-yard stretch of pavement at Eastcheap – just a Molotov cocktail’s throw from where the Great Fire of 1666 started – London’s burning. 8)

On Tuesday afternoon, I was sent out to see if I could fry an egg in the heat, a task that I presumed was impossible on an overcast September day. But, not only was it possible, I had to run out of the death ray that was slowly cooking my egg, because the thinning hairs on my head started to catch fire. The distinctive smell of burning follicles, combined with the sensation of a magnifying glass being shone on my pate, forced me to take cover along the road.

As a result, my finished dish was possibly a little baveuse, as they say in France. A braver soul than me (with thicker hair, I noted jealously) stayed the course and boasted how his egg sandwich was “a little too done for my liking”.

This was accomplished with just intermittent sunshine. Wednesday, due to be a glorious late summer day, could see a brigade of chefs flipping burgers, griddling aubergines and roasting hogs in the astonishing solar flares bouncing off Taser Towers.

On Monday, the air temperature in the concentrated beam, reached 69.8C, which in old money is 158F. To put that in context, the world’s hottest temperature was recorded in Death Valley at 56.7C (134F) over a century ago.

Dr Simon Foster, a solar physicist, accidentally left his measuring equipment in a black bag on the pavement for 10 minutes on Tuesday. The thermometer read 92.6C (198.7F). “It’s insane. It’s just ridiculous. I’ve never felt heat like it,” he says.

Forget frying, you could poach an ostrich egg in that heat.

But while the Walkie Scorchie is causing much amusement to curious pedestrians coming to gawp, it is causing serious problems for the row of shops caught in its glare. Ali Akay of Re-Style barbers, opposite the tower, told me he was “too stressed” to talk, but confirmed his carpet was burnt on Tuesday and many of the plastic bottles of shampoo and hair gel in the window had started to melt.

Diana Pham, assistant manager of the next-door Viet Cafe, admitted she was enjoying the extra trade from office workers swapping their lunchtime sunbed for five minutes of UV from the Towering Inferno. But four slate tiles, which clad the outside of her café, have popped off the building in the last two days, and her furniture is starting to cook.

“The chairs started to smell, very, very bad, like they were burning. We thought something terrible was happening,” she says. The upholstery of the chairs in the windows is starting to gently fricassee.

...

The developers responsible for 20 Fenchurch Street say that the building’s glass cladding has been in place for months, but only led to problems in the last few days, “caused by the current elevation of the sun in the sky”. Er, I think they mean “autumn”. They promise they are working on a solution, which in the short-term is likely to be a temporary awning to protect the shops.

Architectural experts are not impressed and point out that too many modern skyscrapers are causing similar problems.
Three years ago, residents at the Vdara hotel in Las Vegas - also designed by the Rafael Viñoly architectural practice that is behind the Walkie Talkie – complained of being “scorched” by the rays hitting the swimming pool area. The rays were melting their plastic drinking cups, guests claimed.

In Dallas, the Museum Tower, a 42-storey block of apartments, reflected so much light into the neighbouring Nasher Sculpture Center that it threatened artworks in the gallery, scorched plants and caused a two-year dispute between the two parties.

...

Philip Oldfield, a lecturer in architecture at University of Nottingham, says: “Glass is a relatively cheap material and quick to put up. But too many developers are still stuck in the mindset of the 1950s that saw glass as futuristic.”

Of the forest of skyscrapers being built in London, not one is being constructed in any material other than glass and steel. Oldfield said he was “flabbergasted” that such an expensive building as the Walkie Talkie, estimated to cost £200 million to construct, had failed to discover the glare during the modelling and testing phase.

Some of the local office workers were fans of the top-heavy building, which will be occupied by a number of companies, appropriately including Kiln and Royal Sun Alliance. Daniel Green, 33, from Godalming, Surrey, who works as a building surveyor around the corner, says: “I like the building. It looks good. But the light coming off it is immense.”

For most of the Londoners caught in the griddle glare, however, the issue is not so much the heat being created, but the fact that a city full of Wren and Hawksmoor masterpieces is fast becoming a city of glass.
As little as a decade ago, you could turn a corner in the Square Mile and were always promised a glimpse of a Restoration spire amid the modern office blocks. Now, your only guarantee is being blinded by a shaft of light.

Ashley Wall, 25, a headhunter who works on the street, says: “We are starting to look like Hong Kong. And I’m not sure I like that.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/ ... rchie.html

I propose the architects at Rafael Viñoly for an Ignoble Prize! :twisted:
 
See, its not just me.

(but do they have headhunters in modern London, and who employs them? those too lazy to take their own heads?)
 
This 2013 Gizmodo article cites the 'Walkie-Talkie', then proceeds to describe similar inadvertent solar furnace incidents involving 3 buildings in the USA:

Disney Concert Hall, 2003 (Los Angeles)
Vdara Hotel, 2010 (Las Vegas)
Museum Tower, 2013 (Dallas)
A Brief History of Buildings That Melt Things

In London this week, a parabolic "death ray" of sunshine—reflected off of London's newest skyscraper—is destroying luxury cars, starting fires, and frying eggs for comedic effect (oh, England). It's a sensational story, but this isn't the first time an architectural laser has literally burned the hair off of passersby.

The offending tower—better know as 20 Fenchurch Street, or "the Walkie-Talkie"—was designed by Rafael Vinoly ... This isn't architect Rafael Vinoly's first time at the architectural death ray rodeo. Back in 2010, guests at the newly-completed Vdara Hotel in Las Vegas reported that the reflection from the glassy facade was "singing the hair" of swimmers at the adjacent pool.

Even outside of Vinoly's oeuvre, buildings that act like lasers are not unheard of. In fact, there's practically a whole legal industry devoted to them. ...
Click to expand...

SOURCE: https://gizmodo.com/a-brief-history-of-buildings-that-melt-things-1247657178
 
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