Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Death ray skyscraper can melt nearby cars in an hour or set fire to a barbershop's carpet

20 Fenchurch Street in London's financial district
Predatory architecture: Here's a London building not content to wait for terrorism to be visited on it; it can dish out some of its own.
     The edifice curves out toward the top to provide more rentable floorspace where leases are highest.
     Making matters worse, the sun-facing facade also curves from side to side.
     Sadly, the architects didn't consider the possibility that such a parabolic design would concen­trate the sun's heat on nearby objects (like cars and a barber shop) the way that satellite dishes focus signals on the feedhorn.
     Because of its shape, the building's nickname has been Walkie Talkie, but wags now call it "Walkie Scorchie' after The Telegraph reported that at least two vehicles have been damaged by the building, including Martin Lindsay's Jaguar XJ, which sustained more than $1500 work of damage, including melting of mirror housings, the Jaguar badge and parts of the bodywork panels.

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