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.
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.
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.
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.
I think I've spotted a problem!
- 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.
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?
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.
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.
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...
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 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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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....
[1] http://www.rvapc.com/works/707-20-fenchurch-street [2] http://www.rvapc.com/works/index/691-vdara-hotel--spa-at-cit...
http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/vdara-visitor-death-ray-sc...