The 37-story building at 20 Fenchurch Street in London was first nicknamed the Walkie-Talkie, for its shape, and then the Walkie-Scorchie, for its reflectivity. Sun bouncing off its south façade melted part of a car last year, exciting tabloid editors and sending the building’s owners searching for a fix.
That solution came from the building’s architect, Rafael Viñoly, and George Loisos, an Alameda, California-based architect and consultant. The two designed a system of aluminum fins for the 3rd through 33rd floors of the building’s south facade. The fins, according to a report commissioned by the developer, Land Securities/Canary Wharf Group, and filed with the City of London, “will act as a physical barrier to sunlight striking the building and also to sunlight being reflected from the building.”
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