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athelindDisney Concert Hall to Lose Some Luster
(Thanks to BoingBoing)
It seems the Walt Disney Concert Hall has a lovely parabolic curve on the front surface, lined with gleaming, polished steel plates. As a result, beams of searing heat get focused on the sidewalk in front of the building and the condos across the street, giving pedestrians sunburns, heating the sidewalk to egg-frying temperatures, and doubling the a/c bills of the neighbors.
So, city officials have decreed that those panels be sanded down to a brushed-steel finish--which, incidentally, will match other parts of the building that aren't so dramatically curved.
Some have complained about "defacing" an "architectural landmark" like this -- of course, they don't live in the vicinity. "Let them get shades," insistedMarie Antoinette a New Jersey visitor.
Let's put this into perspective, shall we?
One of the following is the Disney Concert Hall. The other is the Odeillo Solar Furnace in France, which can produce power densities of 12 megawatts per square centimeter. Notice any similarities?
Yeah, just get shades. That'll fix everything. And we can land on the sun, if we just go at night.
Note that the Odeillo Solar Furnace opened in 1970, so it's not like this is some mysterious, recently-discovered quirk of optical mathematics.
(Thanks to BoingBoing)
It seems the Walt Disney Concert Hall has a lovely parabolic curve on the front surface, lined with gleaming, polished steel plates. As a result, beams of searing heat get focused on the sidewalk in front of the building and the condos across the street, giving pedestrians sunburns, heating the sidewalk to egg-frying temperatures, and doubling the a/c bills of the neighbors.
So, city officials have decreed that those panels be sanded down to a brushed-steel finish--which, incidentally, will match other parts of the building that aren't so dramatically curved.
Some have complained about "defacing" an "architectural landmark" like this -- of course, they don't live in the vicinity. "Let them get shades," insisted
Let's put this into perspective, shall we?
One of the following is the Disney Concert Hall. The other is the Odeillo Solar Furnace in France, which can produce power densities of 12 megawatts per square centimeter. Notice any similarities?
Yeah, just get shades. That'll fix everything. And we can land on the sun, if we just go at night.
Note that the Odeillo Solar Furnace opened in 1970, so it's not like this is some mysterious, recently-discovered quirk of optical mathematics.
