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evelopers of 20 Fenchurch Street, better known as the "Walkie-Talkie" because of its distinctive shape, are investigating reports of the damaging glare, and a number of nearby car parking spaces have been suspended, say reports.
Businessman Martin Lindsay said he was distraught when he returned to find his luxury Jaguar XJ saloon with warped panels along one side.
The wing mirror and badge had also melted from the heat of the reflected sunlight, he claimed.
"They’re going to have to think of something. I’m gutted. How can they let this continue?" he told.
The 37-storey skyscraper is still being built and the developers are trying to find a way of sorting out the problem by putting up cladding and scaffolding to cover the area of pavement on Eastcheap where the Jaguar melted.
.Apparently for 2 weeks for two hours a day the sun is in the right position to reflect onto the streets below causing damage to building and cars.
I don't think so. At least shimming implies a small adjustment...it needs a lot more than that, plus it will destroy the appearance of the building if they change the angles of the windows, but they may not have much choice.
Originally posted by ignorant_ape
PS - the solution is relatively simple - each window-frame needs shimming on one edge - to difuse the light reflected
Guests at the new Vdara Hotel & Spa have complained that the glass skyscraper can magnify and reflect the sun's rays onto an area of the pool at temperatures hot enough to singe hair or melt plastic. It's a phenomenon that some hotel employees jokingly call the Vdara "death ray."...........
...............The phenomenon occurs when intense heat is created by the curved glass surface of the hotel, which acts as a parabolic dish. The glass bounces the rays from the sun and concentrates the light in 10-by-15-foot hot zone on a portion of the pool deck. Absher said that the hotel's designers foresaw the issue and thought they had solved the problem by installing a high-tech film on the hotel's glass windows to reduce the effect.
Good find. I guess the high tech film didn't help enough:
Originally posted by Pauligirl
Seems they had the same problem here
Las Vegas has a new hot spot — but it's not a nightclub.
Hair burning is bad but I suspect the London building will have the same problem with the hot spot moving around as the Earth orbits the sun. This makes it harder to shield the affected area on the ground, but I suspect it will be easier to do at the hotel.
I could actually smell my hair burning."
Pintas sought refuge away from the sun's rays, where he described what happened to hotel employees. "I said to the staff, 'I don't know if you know what's going on out here, but I was being burned,' and they're like, 'Yeah, we know. We call it the "death ray." ' "