The "Walkie Talkie" skyscraper in London - that near the "Gherkin" in the skyline, with characteristic fluid bulging shape -, is an ustorious mirror capable of frying food (if you are lucky) in the exposed steets.
Note this impressive quote from the Architect, Rafael Viñoly:
> "When it was spotted on a second design iteration, we judged the temperature was going to be about 36 degrees," he said. "But it's turned out to be more like 72 degrees. They are calling it the 'death ray', because if you go there you might die. It is phenomenal, this thing."
I would have gladly found a precise reference, but time presses: it may be resonant for some classic passage describing the engineering of Archimedes of war machines, especially during the Second Punic War (~212 BC) when Syracuse allied with Chartago against Rome, and had to defend from the siege led by Marcellus. Optical devices to set distant things on fire were part of the defence.
So, a nuance intended was: that building would normally had been planned as a war machine...
And wonderfully apt, not just any old obscure (Wiktionary says obsolete actually, but surely that only takes this single counter-example...) word thrown in on a whim.
He had already made this mistake once before, and yet it had to be "spotted" by somebody on the "second design iteration?" What a clown. Any reasonable person, knowing they were designing a building with the same unusual feature that caused this problem before, would have put it on every list of technical risks from the beginning of the project.
I get the feeling that it may even have been deliberate. no one died or even got hurt, and none of us would have heard of the guy if it wasn’t for this
> His Vdara hotel in Las Vegas, with a similarly concave form, focused sunlight onto the pool terrace in 2010, hot enough to melt loungers and singe guests' hair. The glass has since been covered in non-reflective film.
> "That was a completely different problem," said Viñoly, insisting he was following a masterplan that specified arc-shaped towers. "We pointed out that would be an issue too, but who cares if you fry somebody in Las Vegas, right?"
This wasn't a bug. It was designed with the properties and the builder knew it would happen. It also causes physical damage. Minimize this all you want but irresponsible is going easy.
It was designed to have curved glassy surfaces. Both curves and glass are used a lot in modern architecture, for many reasons and "because it focuses the sun" isn't one of them.
Combining glass and curves has been rare because it's technically difficult to build large curved glass. They were hardly ever combined until 1850, and it's still difficult today, 170 years after Crystal Palace. It's done though.
Buildings go through review, which is rather like code review, and the review finds problems, and some slip through. In the case of this building the architect ordered a second review, where the bug was spotted and its consequences computed and found to be acceptable. (This is something engineers do all the time. When I had a hole made in a wall at home, a structural engineer computed how much the floor would sag and found it to be acceptable.)
I'm guessing that the second review was carried out precisely because the architect wanted to be careful about those curved surfaces.
Of course you can pretend that the curves were built in order to focus light and blame people for it. In that case you should accept that people blame you, too.
Well, the original article says it was designed to have curved surfaces. That it concentrated heat was something they discovered during review, which implies that it was not a design goal. Then they computed what the temperature would be, and found it acceptable. Then in reality the temperature was quite different from what was computed.
The original article chose wording that distinguished between the design goal, the computed side effect and the actual side effect. 4RealFreedom chose wording that commingled the three.
It's not particularly a "bug", it's more like an antipattern.
Do you concatenate strings to generate SQL queries from user input? Of course you don't, that's just asking for a SQL injection attack, everyone knows that.
Similarly, if you make a concave shiny thing and face it south (at least in the northern hemisphere), it'll focus the sun's rays. I find it hard to believe that the architect didn't know about focusing light, given that they'd have to have at least passed high school and this is the sort of thing you do in 1st year Physics. Any 12-year-old *at the oldest* knows this.
Architects typically don't know such things (I went to architecture school), they hire engineers to compute the effect. This is typical practice: The architect draws intent, then hires someone to compute effect, then there are meetings about the difference between intent and effect, and modifications, and a loop, and eventually the thing is built.
That one person does intent and another computes effect is deliberate. A kind of four-eyes principle. Then more eyes look at it when the plans are submitted to the city's authority, but that isn't usually as thorough as the review cycle between architect and hired engineers.
In this case they computed that the peak heat would be 36°C, the actual peak afterwards is given as 72°C. Those are very different temperatures.
FWIW, based on my somewhat primitive knowledge of this (I didn't finish that school) the most likely cause for the difference is imperfect modelling of the wind. How buildings affect wind is still an active area of research. Both this building and its neighbour affect air circulation in ways that couldn't be modelled using the current state of the art. When focused sunlight works on calm air, it can raise the temperature a great deal. Warm air staying calm instead of rising is a surprise, of course.
(The poor modelling is common BTW, although usually not that serious. In my native Norway snow drifts often collect in surprising spots around new buildings, because the building produces calm air here, wind there.)
> The developers have blamed the problem on "the current elevation of the sun in the sky," a position Viñoly seems inclined to share.
> "When I first came to London years ago, it wasn't like this," he said. "Now you have all these sunny days. So you should blame this thing on global warming too, right?"
This really is turning obsessive-compulsive responsibility avoidance into a form of performance art.
And if the building collapsed due to defective design & construction, they'd be blaming the "who could have imagined?" gravity, right?
There's a point of irresponsibility where I really wish that the courts would open inquiries into the mental competence of the reality-deniers. With "you could be legally declared mentally incompetent, and committed to an institution for life" at stake.
These quotes, at different times by different people, have been juxtaposed to make it seem like the developers are associating the elevation of the sun with climate change. Here's the quote in a more honest context, explaining why they expect the phenomenon to subside shortly
I can't read that article, but it seems pretty clear to me that they're separate quotes; although I suppose it could seem like they're juxtaposed in a quick reading. I did actually put them in a search engine to see if they're out of context, but I couldn't really find anything to suggest they are.
So, If I had understood it correctly, this is the same man designing a cancer research building in California while burning human ants in Las Vegas, right?
Workers in those buildings are fired and fried in the same step it seems
On the other hand, this system could be handy to clean ice and snow in particular points on the roads. Hum... Chicago should build a lot of those and uncover it in winter
Maybe London should stop allowing "architects" to design these modern mostroserties, and instead design classical buildings that will both stand the test of time and... not burn things.
Awful idea and quite reactionary. There’s no reason to design buildings that look like old buildings unless you’re doing a renovation. We have different materials that allow us to build to heights we couldn’t before. We lack the craftsmen to build authentic facades from that era so we’d end up with ignorant pastiches of old buildings.
Tastefully intermingling the old with the new is difficult to do at times but the results are magnificent. See The Louvre for example.
Tastefully intermingling the old with the new is exactly what isn't happening. I don't think a return to the classics is the answer, but some cities manage to handle modernism without clashing with tradition, and London very much isn't one of them.
Worse, these buildings are going to have a very limited working life compared to the older architecture around them. A century is optimistic.
The Walkie Talkie isn’t great and it sort of lacks dignity for London’s skyline. But I think other recent structures such as city hall, the shard, and the gherkin all work.
Also since the late 2000, regular architect do a real good job designing "classic" mid-rise buildings with terrace and enough light in all apartments that :
- Are well insulated,
- Are nice to live in,
- Take into account orientation (sun and stuff),
- Are a lot better looking than the previous mid-rise buildings, with maybe the exception of old 19th century construction (this is a taste thing, i personnally dislike Haussman and Victorian style, but i like Le Baron Jenney).
Which make "great" architects designs worse i think (by comparison).
This reminds me of 750 7th ave in NY. A lot of Morgan Stanley IT was (is?) houses there. Rumor had it the building design was copied from a building in Texas.
The problem? The beautiful terraced glass surfaces had a tendency to pick up snow and ice in the winter, which as it melted would then tend to slide off the building and crash into the sidewalk below. After heavy snow storms they had to cordone off the sidewalks so pedestrians weren’t speared to by giant icicles falling from the sky.
Lesson: environmental context matters in building design. But even big time architects can goof in big ways (see also the Citibank building debacle).
"The architect has a track record of creating buildings that burn. His Vdara hotel in Las Vegas, with a similarly concave form, focused sunlight onto the pool terrace in 2010, hot enough to melt loungers and singe guests' hair."
"That was a completely different problem," said Viñoly, insisting he was following a masterplan that specified arc-shaped towers. "We pointed out that would be an issue too, but who cares if you fry somebody in Las Vegas, right?"
Maybe the endgame is to create a partially open subway station with a similarly concave design at the opposite site of the focus and then put a NdCrYAG crystal there... [0]
"I knew this was going to happen" ... "But there was a lack of tools or software that could be used to analyse the problem accurately."
It makes me think of ray-tracing. You would think an architect would already have a ray-tracer with accurate materials set up for rendering visualizations which could show the issue.
You're right. It doesn't seem like a hard problem to solve. Surely the designers of those solar mirror arrays in the desert in California have software for this. If he knew it was going to happen but failed to analyze it properly, then this is his fault.
55 comments
[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 80.8 ms ] threadNote this impressive quote from the Architect, Rafael Viñoly:
> "When it was spotted on a second design iteration, we judged the temperature was going to be about 36 degrees," he said. "But it's turned out to be more like 72 degrees. They are calling it the 'death ray', because if you go there you might die. It is phenomenal, this thing."
This is such an obscure word that your comment is already in the Google results for it. Kudos: https://i.imgur.com/tGgrIaZ.png
So, a nuance intended was: that building would normally had been planned as a war machine...
Another use! But yes, if you kill off the many, many dictionary results that HN comment is first page. E.g.:
> "ustorious" -definition -dictionary -pronounce -spelling -rhyme
> "That was a completely different problem," said Viñoly, insisting he was following a masterplan that specified arc-shaped towers. "We pointed out that would be an issue too, but who cares if you fry somebody in Las Vegas, right?"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2786723/London-skys...
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309136628_Avoiding_...
Big if true.
Combining glass and curves has been rare because it's technically difficult to build large curved glass. They were hardly ever combined until 1850, and it's still difficult today, 170 years after Crystal Palace. It's done though.
Buildings go through review, which is rather like code review, and the review finds problems, and some slip through. In the case of this building the architect ordered a second review, where the bug was spotted and its consequences computed and found to be acceptable. (This is something engineers do all the time. When I had a hole made in a wall at home, a structural engineer computed how much the floor would sag and found it to be acceptable.)
I'm guessing that the second review was carried out precisely because the architect wanted to be careful about those curved surfaces.
Of course you can pretend that the curves were built in order to focus light and blame people for it. In that case you should accept that people blame you, too.
No one said anything of the sort and I cannot conceive how anyone could possible think that they did.
The original article chose wording that distinguished between the design goal, the computed side effect and the actual side effect. 4RealFreedom chose wording that commingled the three.
Do you concatenate strings to generate SQL queries from user input? Of course you don't, that's just asking for a SQL injection attack, everyone knows that.
Similarly, if you make a concave shiny thing and face it south (at least in the northern hemisphere), it'll focus the sun's rays. I find it hard to believe that the architect didn't know about focusing light, given that they'd have to have at least passed high school and this is the sort of thing you do in 1st year Physics. Any 12-year-old *at the oldest* knows this.
That one person does intent and another computes effect is deliberate. A kind of four-eyes principle. Then more eyes look at it when the plans are submitted to the city's authority, but that isn't usually as thorough as the review cycle between architect and hired engineers.
In this case they computed that the peak heat would be 36°C, the actual peak afterwards is given as 72°C. Those are very different temperatures.
FWIW, based on my somewhat primitive knowledge of this (I didn't finish that school) the most likely cause for the difference is imperfect modelling of the wind. How buildings affect wind is still an active area of research. Both this building and its neighbour affect air circulation in ways that couldn't be modelled using the current state of the art. When focused sunlight works on calm air, it can raise the temperature a great deal. Warm air staying calm instead of rising is a surprise, of course.
(The poor modelling is common BTW, although usually not that serious. In my native Norway snow drifts often collect in surprising spots around new buildings, because the building produces calm air here, wind there.)
> "When I first came to London years ago, it wasn't like this," he said. "Now you have all these sunny days. So you should blame this thing on global warming too, right?"
This really is turning obsessive-compulsive responsibility avoidance into a form of performance art.
And if the building collapsed due to defective design & construction, they'd be blaming the "who could have imagined?" gravity, right?
There's a point of irresponsibility where I really wish that the courts would open inquiries into the mental competence of the reality-deniers. With "you could be legally declared mentally incompetent, and committed to an institution for life" at stake.
https://www.ft.com/content/82196b28-13ec-11e3-9289-00144feab...
Workers in those buildings are fired and fried in the same step it seems
On the other hand, this system could be handy to clean ice and snow in particular points on the roads. Hum... Chicago should build a lot of those and uncover it in winter
Laughed out loud at this one
Tastefully intermingling the old with the new is difficult to do at times but the results are magnificent. See The Louvre for example.
Worse, these buildings are going to have a very limited working life compared to the older architecture around them. A century is optimistic.
- Are well insulated,
- Are nice to live in,
- Take into account orientation (sun and stuff),
- Are a lot better looking than the previous mid-rise buildings, with maybe the exception of old 19th century construction (this is a taste thing, i personnally dislike Haussman and Victorian style, but i like Le Baron Jenney).
Which make "great" architects designs worse i think (by comparison).
The problem? The beautiful terraced glass surfaces had a tendency to pick up snow and ice in the winter, which as it melted would then tend to slide off the building and crash into the sidewalk below. After heavy snow storms they had to cordone off the sidewalks so pedestrians weren’t speared to by giant icicles falling from the sky.
Lesson: environmental context matters in building design. But even big time architects can goof in big ways (see also the Citibank building debacle).
Fun fact: cost-cutting in architecture is called "value engineering," a sinister euphemism if I've ever heard one.
The building is also lovingly called the "Fryscraper" by the locals.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-pumped_laser
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309136628_Avoiding_...
And a link to a few simpler pictures - scroll through them to the right. https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/walkie-scorchie-sol...
It makes me think of ray-tracing. You would think an architect would already have a ray-tracer with accurate materials set up for rendering visualizations which could show the issue.