Do they not teach science in Uruguay?
The half-finished 37-storey tower at 20 Fenchurch Street in central London, dubbed the Walkie Talkie due to its distinctive shape, is now being called the “Walkie Scorchie” because of its apparent ability to bounce heat from the sun onto buildings in the next street.
The building’s developers said they last night erected the temporary black sun screen – which measures 10ft high by 13ft long – on the pavement outside affected shops.
They have also closed off three parking bays to prevent further damage to cars.
The architect – Uruguayan-born Rafael Vinoly – also designed the Vdara Hotel in Las Vegas, which suffered similar problems.
The concave design of the building “death ray†of sunlight allegedly left guests with severe burns in September 2010.
He designs one building with a concave design and puts it in the desert and it burns people in the same manner as a cruel child with a magnifying glass burns ants.
So he builds another one and figures it will be OK because it’ll be built further north of the Tropic of Cancer?
Do they not teach geography in the pacific northwest?
The tropic of cancer runs through the middle of Mexico.
Hundreds of miles south of Vegas.
Wonder if he’s the same guy who designed the refractor-lens bank-building in San Jose that kills it’s own lawn? 10 years ago you could Google it, now it seems buried – appears they replaced the burnt lawn with cement pathways. Bridge Bank, on Almaden Blvd…
What’s the old saying? Once it’s unusual, twice it’s coincidence, three times it’s enemy action? It could be intentional. Maybe the architect soaked up some of the anti-Americanism/anti-imperialism propaganda often tossed around south of the Rio Grande, and decided on a subtle and deniable way to fuck with the Yanquis.
Chris: he said further north of the tropic, as in London is further north of the tropic than Vegas
I don’t think architects get a whole lot of math or physics training (that is what civil engineers are for; learning all that science harshes the artistic flow) .