
Dangerous Skyscrapers Channel Wind and Sun, Topple Pedestrians and Start Fires - matthberg
http://99percentinvisible.org/article/dangerous-skyscrapers-channel-wind-sun-topple-pedestrians-start-fires/
======
level
Stephen avenue in Calgary has some structures that were built to prevent wind
gusts between buildings[1]. The street has a lot of foot traffic and that area
became windy after the two skyscrapers on either side were constructed. Not
sure about the cost to the city, but they're interesting to look at and they
seem to achieve their goal.

[1]
[https://www.google.ca/maps/@51.0456499,-114.0704853,3a,75y,7...](https://www.google.ca/maps/@51.0456499,-114.0704853,3a,75y,72.01h,104.94t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sFrzPaV8XiAi_NIMsxxL1qQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en)

~~~
Gravityloss
That's fascinating. I've always wished my city had things like these. Trees
would be nice, but they grow slowly and just when they start being big enough
to thrive, look good and be useful, some official decides they're dangerous or
happen to be exactly on top of a new roadway. So I guess a cold dead
mechanical tree is the best we could get.

~~~
pm90
I wonder if this may be because of the weather, but why can't you grow vines
on the metal trees to make it "green"? Or some sort of wall hugging
vegetation. I mean, sure its not the same as a tree, but at least it might
look nicer.

~~~
bluehawk
My guess is that the vanes on the top do something to disrupt the wind and
stop it from reaching street level at such high speeds. The vines growing
between the vanes could prevent this effect from happening.

------
niftich
Las Vegas condo/hotel Vdara, one of the highrises in the City Center
development, was designed by the same architect as the Walkie Talkie -- Rafael
Viñoly -- and exhibits the same solar convergence phenomenon; affectionately
called the 'Vdara Death Ray' [1][2][3].

In a 2013 interview with the Guardian [4], he claims there was not much he
could do about the Vdara, as the customer specifically wanted an arc-shaped
building; in fact the the City Center development has several sweeping arc
forms, like in the neighboring Aria -- but the concavity of the Aria's
highrises aren't oriented south to converge the midday sun [5], whereas the
Vdara aims them right at the pool deck [2].

For both Vdara and the Walkie Talkie, he claims to have been aware of the
phenomenon going into the design but lacked the ability to correctly calculate
the impact. Further, if claims are true, for the Walkie Talkie he said: "(...)
the original design of the building had featured horizontal sun louvres on its
south-facing facade, but these are believed to have been removed during cost-
cutting as the project developed." [4]

[1] [https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/vdara-visitor-death-
ray-s...](https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/vdara-visitor-death-ray-scorched-
hair/) [2] [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1315978/Las-Vegas-
ho...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1315978/Las-Vegas-hotel-death-
ray-leaves-guests-severe-burns.html) [3] [http://www.businessinsider.com/the-
vdara-death-ray-hotel-is-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-vdara-death-
ray-hotel-is-still-burning-people-in-las-vegas-2016-6) [4]
[https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/sep/06/walkie-...](https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/sep/06/walkie-
talkie-architect-predicted-reflection-sun-rays) [5]
[http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/36.10834/-115.17640](http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/36.10834/-115.17640)

~~~
kwhitefoot
> lacked the ability to correctly calculate the impact

And didn't bother to get the ability either.

~~~
Declanomous
If you design a building that is literally a threat to public safety, and then
you design a second building that poses the exact same threat, you should lose
all professional licensure. If you do any work in that field again, you should
be charged with criminal negligence or something similar.

~~~
Animats
"The developers have blamed the problem on "the current elevation of the sun
in the sky," a position Viñoly seems inclined to share."

Like that was a surprise.

~~~
Declanomous
I just googled him. He's super famous. So he probably has that Frank Lloyd
Wright thing going for him, where his buildings have glaring flaws but they
are let off the hook because their work is so acclaimed.

On the topic of FLW, I've visited a number of his houses. One of my friends
growing up lived in a Wright house. I've visited Wright's personal house,
Taliesen. In my opinion, Wright is not really an architect.

I consider Wright more of a sculptor or an artist. His designs are terribly
impractical, and are not versatile in the least. Additionally, he didn't
account for the limitations of the materials he was using to build his
structures. So his buildings tend to require a lot of repairs, and many have
structural problems, leaks, as well as general safety issues.

Wright wasn't the least bit apologetic about any of these things, and it seems
like Viñoly shares the same overwhelming egotism.

On a somewhat hilarious note, when I went to visit Taliesin, there were
several rooms which I thought were poorly designed, but had an element that I
considered a saving grace. In literally every single instance, it was
something his wife had added/altered after his death.

So, point being, I think that when you allow an egotistical architect to
design something without any sort of editorial limitation, you probably end up
with a worse product overall.

~~~
pjc50
> I just googled him. He's super famous. So he probably has that Frank Lloyd
> Wright thing going for him, where his buildings have glaring flaws but they
> are let off the hook because their work is so acclaimed.

Architecture as a discipline has a real problem with this. Far too little
attention is given to usability and the prosaic question of how a building
turns out in practice; there's far too much back-slapping about "vision".

~~~
Jach
I remember reading back in 2004 a suggestion that MIT should force its
architecture students to study in the building designed for the CS students
and let the CS students have the nice architects' building.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_and_Maria_Stata_Center](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_and_Maria_Stata_Center)
vs [https://foursquare.com/v/mit-building-7-rogers-
building/4ab9...](https://foursquare.com/v/mit-building-7-rogers-
building/4ab97b54f964a520917f20e3/photos) (Amusingly MIT sued Frank Gehry over
the building later due to flaws, but it's been settled.)

~~~
ansible
Yeah, that Stata Center building is such a joke. It makes me mad, and I
haven't even set foot in the building. Such a waste of resources and yet
another example of what happens when you try to push form over function.

~~~
Declanomous
I'd say they've successfully deconstructed what it means to be a building
though.

------
ChuckMcM
I always thought it would be interesting to set up a slightly convex mylar
sheet at the base of the Vdara. Perhaps innocently as a 'shade' under the
extra sun. The results of which would be an extended Schmidt-Cassegrain type
mirror arrangement that would deliver somewhere around 10x the solar
insolation into the unfortunate condo at the focal point of the sheet.

It would be irresponsible to say the least, and have terrible optics, but it
appeals to my darker side.

------
mattkevan
I used to cycle past the Walkie Talkie building on my daily commute - the
draughts were so strong that on windy days it almost took me off my bike. And
I have actually seen it knock people over.

The worst thing about it though has to be the Skygarden at the top. It was
built on some public space, so as part of the agreement, the builders had to
include some 'public' space at the top. Unlike most public spaces I've been to
however, you have to book in advance, are not allowed in groups over a certain
size and have to go through full airport-style security. That's fitting
however because when you're up there, the space has all the charm of an
airport terminal. And, due to the way the girders are aligned, there's not
even much of a view. Which is a stunning achievement really.

The best feature has to be the fancy restaurant which takes up most of
'public' space. It's at the top of one of the taller buildings in London,
right in the middle of the City and _you can 't see out_.

------
Animats
A popular 1960s mistake was the open-column lobby floor, where the entrance
level is smaller than the building above it. The air hitting the building is
forced through the open area of the entrance level. This worked out OK in
Brasilia, where a breeze was welcome, but it was terrible in cold, windy
locations.

Embarrassingly, MIT's Green Building was built like that.

~~~
gumby
Allegedly (back when I was an undergraduate in the 1980s) the calder sculpture
outside was designed to deflect the wind to stop this problem. A great story,
though I never found out if it was true or not.

~~~
Animats
Wikipedia says no. It's too far from the building, and too small.

The Grande Arche de la Défense just outside Paris has similar problems, and
glass panels rise out of the ground during high winds to shield pedestrians.

------
owenversteeg
I live next to a skyscraper (about 100m tall/330 feet - just barely meets the
definition of skyscraper) that channels the wind past itself through this
narrow chokepoint.

Anyone who rides their bike through the area during even moderate winds is
blown off, and when heavy winds pick up the place is truly awesome.

I've gone there, covered in poofy jackets so I bounce when I land, and just
let myself get blown away. It's tremendously fun. There's a large concrete gap
where buses/trams go, maybe the width of a road (maybe 24 feet?) and the wind
has picked me up on one side and set me down on another. (Occasionally
requires jumping in the air first.) But if I want to get back home? I've got
to wait hours, or walk in a large detour around the building.

~~~
scrollaway
Care to share where that is? (Asking for a friend.)

~~~
owenversteeg
Hahahaha I'd rather not share my exact location publicly on HN as I live quite
close to the building. But if anyone would like to know, my email is in my
profile, and I'll be happy to explain how to get to the building with public
transit, other things to do in the area, and how to get inside it if you'd
like.

(The building is in the Netherlands.)

If you (or anyone else) wants to try this for yourself, simply find a place
where wind is channeled through a small-ish opening. Small in this context
just means "smaller than the walls around it" so even a house-sized opening
can work. Searching Twitter/Google for complaints about wind or getting
knocked down by the wind can help.

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
Software engineering often gets criticized as being so error prone compared to
"real" engineering. These buildings demonstrate​, that when you combine
marketing, egos, a desire for novelty, and ignorance of constraints you can
get massive disasters, just like with software.

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imgabe
I think it would be cool to use some of these things deliberately. If you can
design the building to generate 80mph winds, why not put a turbine in their
path? If the building is going to focus the sun into a "death ray", point it
at a Stirling engine.

~~~
hammock
This sort of exists already, quite common. Roof turbine vents:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=roof+turbine+vent&source=lnm...](https://www.google.com/search?q=roof+turbine+vent&source=lnms&tbm=isch)

~~~
iamdave
Aren't those specifically used for ventilation though? I think comment you're
replying to was thinking turbines to generate power

~~~
hammock
Maybe... he wasn't specific. I was thinking bigger as that wind energy could
be used for things other than electricity generation.

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meddlepal
My favorite one of these in the John Hancock Tower in Boston which had to have
its entire facade replaced and was known as the Plywood Palace while the work
was underway:
[http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2014/07/29/plywoo...](http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2014/07/29/plywood-
palace-photograph-1974/).

Even to this day the winds around the base of the JHT can be obscenely high. I
used to walk past it often from Back Bay station to my apartment down Stuart
St. and the block it occupies when it lightly rains or snows it feels like a
Hurricane vs the blocks immediately before and after it.

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BuildTheRobots
Bridgewater Place in Leeds (UK) has had at least one death caused by the wind
tunnel effect now and regularly has to have road closures around it when it
gets gusty (though living in the UK, at least bad weather isn't often a
problem /s)

edit: should have read the article before commenting, would you believe this
is one of the first examples. Apologies for what turns out to be an entirely
unnecessary comment.

------
wehadfun
There is a building in Dallas called Museum Tower that has a reflective glare
that effectively destroyed a popular piece at a near by museum.

~~~
matthberg
This sounds fascinating, do you remember when this happened?

~~~
tkahnoski
2012 This article has some good details on the story and a lot of drama around
the project at the beginning
[https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2012/may/m...](https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2012/may/museum-
tower-the-towering-inferno/) It still hasn't been resolved.
[https://www.dallasnews.com/arts/museums/2016/09/25/fights-
fa...](https://www.dallasnews.com/arts/museums/2016/09/25/fights-fantasy-
fixes-fbi-museum-tower-nasher-still-odds-glare-five-years)

~~~
emmelaich
> It still hasn't been resolved

.. and now we know why. It's politically impossible. If anyone else owned the
building it would be fixed or the owners sued.

> "The Dallas Police & Fire Pension System, which had earlier made a small
> investment in the Museum Tower project, announced that it would jump in with
> both feet and finance the entire thing, all $200 million of it"

------
lloeki
The plaza and cathedral of Strasbourg (which you can see at the very beginning
of one of the Sherlock Holmes movies starring R. Downey Jr.) has been
engineered to channel wind around the cathedral, instilling a devilish,
chilling feel and making the cathedral stand out as a safe haven.

------
bionsuba
> Non-reflective film has since been added, but not before the building earned
> a new nicknames like “Walkie-Scorchie”

You can always count on the Brits for coming up with great names for things.

~~~
21
Now being built, the "can of ham":

[https://architizer-prod.imgix.net/media/1422058020643Can-
of-...](https://architizer-prod.imgix.net/media/1422058020643Can-of-Ham.jpg)

[http://media.gizmodo.co.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2015/01/Contri...](http://media.gizmodo.co.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2015/01/ContriversialBuildings-CanofHam.jpg)

~~~
wahern
So are Brits good a coming up with nicknames, or are they simply more apt to
build enormous buildings that look like common household items?

~~~
Symbiote
In order to get permission to build a large building in central London, it's
necessary to have a distinctive, unique design. The city does not want to look
like America.

Hence, the Gherkin, Cheesegrater, Can of Ham, Walkie Talkie, Shard, Helter-
skelter.

------
egypturnash
Another wonderful side effect of the vast concentration of capital! Who cares
about the peons outside as long as the CEO gets to be in the tallest building?

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ouid
Are there any times of day where the light coverges on a point in space above
the street? Could a bird flying through this space catch fire?

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Shivetya
The fun bit about this is that some may get the same effect at home from their
windows. I know my SW facing windows will reflect little X shapes onto the
back lawn and when you cross one they are noticeably hot. it is almost useful
in winter

So what I am saying is that while some sky scrapers/etc can cause issues its
the design/surface of all window surfaces that cause issues. it just is a
matter of scale

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makr17
Doesn't need to be a skyscraper. Similar focus problems with the Disney Hall
in Los Angeles:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_Concert_Hall#Refle...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_Concert_Hall#Reflection_problems)

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frik
The "Grande Arche" in Paris has some glass protection wall to minimize channel
winds. Still a very windy place.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Arche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Arche)

------
aaron695
Come on.

If you have to talk about the cliche skyscraper that cooks eggs everyone knows
about, it's not really a story, it's more news, a one off (OK there was also
one in Las Vegas)

The wind thing is interesting perhaps. Is that an actual engineering issue?

