When solar power goes wrong
Green buildings are all the rage these days, all the cool kids are doing it. They help to save the environment by harnessing things like solar power. Architect Rafael Vinoly may not be designing green buildings per se, but he sure is harnessing the power of the sun. He designed a thirty-seven story skyscraper that stands on Fenchurch Street in London. The building sports mirrored glass windows, and a concave tapered shape. Thanks to the concave design, and the relative positioning of the sun, this building creates a beam of light that rivals the Man of Steel’s heat vision. The concaved mirrored windows focus the sun’s rays into a beam of light that has been measured at more than 230 degrees Fahrenheit! To put it in perspective, water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit. The building has been responsible for starting a small fire in front of a barbershop across the street, and melting the mirror and badge off of a nearby parked Jaguar sports car. The city has erected scaffolding covered in a black screen to protect nearby businesses from this virtual death ray of a building.
What’s the moral of the story? There isn’t one, except that solar power is awesome. Well, that and don’t park your car across from 20 Fenchurch Street in London.