#5: 20 Fenchurch Street – London (2014)
London’s 20 Fenchurch Street became notorious before it was even fully occupied because its curved glass façade unexpectedly concentrated sunlight onto the streets below. The building’s concave southern surface acted somewhat like a giant reflector, producing an intensely focused patch of solar energy that became powerful enough to damage parts of a parked Jaguar and scorch nearby materials. The phenomenon earned the skyscraper the unforgettable nickname “Walkie Scorchie,” a variation on the already established “Walkie Talkie” nickname inspired by its distinctive shape. Temporary measures were introduced while engineers investigated how to prevent the reflected sunlight from creating similar conditions whenever the sun reached particular seasonal angles. A permanent external shading system, consisting of horizontal aluminum fins known as brise-soleil, was subsequently installed across the problematic façade in 2014. The intervention reduced solar reflection while preserving the tower’s basic architectural form.
