Skyscraper melts Jaguar

[Yarahi 1,816]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23930675 The disadvantages of modern architecture?

[Easy Bakes 253]

that what happens when you make car parts out of plastic.

And send in  Mythbusters

[Duke87 1,070]

The disadvantages of modern architecture?

 

More like the powers of a parabolic mirror.

 

The thing then is, since the building doesn't change orientation, this phenomenon is dependent on the sun being in a particular spot in the sky... explaining why there was no problem prior to now. Give it a bit and it'll go away. But then it'll pop up again mid-April if nothing is done by then.

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

This sounds like the plot of a poor James Bond fanfiction...

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

You know, this ain't the first time I ever heard of this kind of thing happening (and yes, I did hear about 5 seconds of it on the TV several hours prior)... A similar building in the US was built like this, but the reflective materials were just metal panels that they inevitably had to sand down. It was the Walt Disney Concert Hall; I looked it up, except the concern there was people melting, not cars...

[Ocram's Razr 963]

I read about this on CNN and BBC. This is quite fascinating. I wonder why they chose to make the building in that shape. At least the building owners took responsability and even monitored or removed a few parking spaces where the concentrated sun would hit.

 

 

--Ocram

[SteveMSim 275]

Reminds me of the Museum Tower, a new residential skyscraper in Dallas whose facade is of highly reflective glass, installed to make the building more energy efficent.  The Museum Tower overlooks a park and a sculpture garden and the building's glass facade was reflecting the sunlight and heat onto the park and garden.  Given Texas' notoriously hot summers, the Museum Tower was literally frying the vegetation and even the sculptures were being damaged by the intense light and heat.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well I guess it is time to think of a building like this being used as a heat source to vaporize water and drive a power turbine, yes?  The building would have to be gimballed to follow the sun, and the converter arranged to always be at the focus.  An urban power plant.  New municipal feature: "Power Plaza".

[AkemiAzula 280]

Hmm uses in power production do come to mind. Also the fact that most conventional skyscrapers have flat walls and get narrower toward the top. But I suppose the argument of higher rents at the top makes pseudo-sense, although why they didn't just build a regular rectangular design but higher...

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

Very interesting indeed.

[dazza262 133]

We're having an unusually hot spell here in London at the moment, so being the UK, it won't be a problem for long 

[Duke87 1,070]

Heh. Some of the edits that have been made to the Architect's Wikipedia article are hilarious.

 

One

Two

Three

 

[Cobraroll 138]

Hmm uses in power production do come to mind.

 

Solar power plants à la the ones in SimCity 4 use this principle already. Lots of curved mirrors focusing sunlight in one point, heating up a thingamajig that creates power.

As for incorporating that into skyscrapers on a regular basis... hardly. You'd only be able to produce power for a couple of hours every day, in perfect weather conditions (likely to change with the seasons as well). This could be remedied by somehow turning the building to follow the sun, but the costs associated with rotating a skyscraper would be way, way larger than any power income you could possibly hope to generate, by several orders of magnitude.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

On the other hand, instead of an array of solar cells on the roof, why not have an array of power dishes on the roof that track the sun?  I'll bet that this type of steam powered turbine system would produce more juice than a solar cell array.  If the roof was big enough and not a silly spire, it might be able to take the building off the grid in the day time.  Cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix could probably make this work.

 

Not recommended for cities like Vancouver that has 200 days of rain a year.