from Hacker News

'Walkie-Talkie' skyscraper melts Jaguar car

by drucken on 9/2/13, 4:22 PM with 23 comments

  • by lutusp on 9/2/13, 4:31 PM

    Title of this submission: "'Walkie-Talkie' skyscraper melts Jaguar car"

    Title of the actual article: "'Walkie-Talkie' skyscraper melts Jaguar car parts"

    This is like saying, "Prime minister discusses end of world rumor" and leaving off "rumor".

  • by corysama on 9/2/13, 5:45 PM

    A friend of mine worked on one of the few "laser disc holographic" arcade game machines. (ex: http://www.oobject.com/revolutionary-arcade-cabinets/1991-ho...) The "hologram" was a visual trick involving a large, curved mirror. They had to do a recall after one arcade establishment positioned the machine next to a window. The sunlight shining through the window was focused to a point on the side of the wooden cabinet causing the machine set itself on fire and burn down the arcade! A quick redesign later and they had a variation on the "holographic" effect that used a convex mirror instead of a concave one.

  • by sbarre on 9/2/13, 5:37 PM

    Didn't this happen with a Gehry building in Los Angeles too?

    The concert hall was reflecting "hot spots" in various areas, etc..

    http://architecture.about.com/od/ideasapproaches/ss/Controve...

  • by easytiger on 9/2/13, 5:07 PM

    I wonder if this is Jaguar specific or because it was an aluminium monocoque. But I would hope that Jaguar would have something to say about this. Especially since one carrying dick van dyke went up in flames. And especially since i have one and am now a tad worried.

    Also < £1k for those repairs sounds very very low.

  • by leoedin on 9/2/13, 5:46 PM

    It seems that they've inadvertently built a giant parabolic reflector. Out of glass...

    I wonder what the solution to this will be, and to what extent the developers will be held responsible. Is there any laws against focusing light intensely onto the street? I'd imagine that the cost of either increasing the light absorbed by each window or somehow adjusting the windows so they don't create such a uniform reflector will be rather high.

  • by rexreed on 9/2/13, 6:36 PM

    One potential solution might be to coat the reflective glass windows with a transparent layer that diffuses rather than reflects the light. Sounds like that would be the simplest and least costly approach.

  • by mikeash on 9/2/13, 5:44 PM

    How, exactly, do you design a gigantic curved reflective surface without considering things like this? I mean, the basic idea dates back to at least Ancient Greece if not further.