[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

DANG!

[ClearCase_guy]

"My car melted on a hot day."
"Hmmmmmm. Have you thought about suing the developers of the building next door?"

[Cowboy Bob]

I guess the Indians are making the Jags out of plastic!

[Mr. K]

At least they were polite enough to leave a note and pay for repairs

[Pan_Yan]

"It could be dangerous. Imagine if the sun reflected on the wrong part of the body.

What part would not be the wrong part?

[Paladin2]

Architects don’t have software for ray tracing?

[Mr. K]

OK now who designed this and DIDN’T think the side was going to act like a giant magnifying glass?

Its even angled downward for maximum frying down below

They are going to have to angle every single pane of glass upwards, or something

[al_c]

I think I’d take up the issue with Jaguar before I blamed it on a building. What kind of cheap plastic are they using in those things now days?

[Alex Murphy]

It's called a "LASER"

[Timber Rattler]

The wing mirror, panels and Jaguar badge had all melted, Mr Lindsay said.

Seems to me that the problem is more with the quality and material of the car's components than with the building reflecting the light.

[WayneS]

Take a look at the pictures of the building with the article. One end of the structure forms a gigantic concave mirror.

The Jaguar must have been parked at, or very near, the focal point.

[justlurking]

I'm surprised that it was hot enough to melt automobile-grade plastic. As someone else posted, I'd take it up with Jaguar.

But, there's another case of reflection from a skyscraper causing problems in Dallas. It's not melting plastic, but killing plants in a nearby atrium:

Dallas Tower Dithers as Glass Roasts Museum Masterpieces

[BwanaNdege]

The problem is not simply reflected sunlight. The building has a concave shape which concentrates that reflected sunlight. Concave shapes are fairly unusual in architecture.

Unless the building was designed by a cartoonist, I cannot imagine any competent architectural firm (as opposed to a single designer) submitting such a building as a proposal, let alone constructing one.

There are plenty of CAD rendering programs with ray tracing capabilities which, when coupled with annual solar path data for that location & orientation, could have predicted the exact path and intensity of the focal point for any day of the year.

A number of people made a series of major mistakes. Rectification will be costly.

More info here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23944679

[JRios1968]

Can we attach the frickin’ building to some frickin’ sharks?

[bgill]

There’s your global warming.

[Moltke]

In his younger days, the designer fried ants with a magnifying glass.

At some point in his career he noticed, “hey, people look like ants from up here.”

The rest, as they say, is history.

[quietly desperate]

I wonder if they are using low E glass. I have a garden window with it, and you can really feel the heat if you stand in the reflected sunlight.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Something like this was built near my parents’ home.

In their living room the sun now sets in the west, and the north.

[gura]

Las Vegas 'Death Ray' Singes Tourists