How light affected this building's design
"Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light." -Le Corbusier
One day while stuck in Manila's famous stagnant traffic, I happened to notice a building facade that surprisingly stood out from the rest. One could say it "shined".
Here it is:
The facade was dynamic and moving as the highlight moved like water across the building's face.
It all seemed intentional.
But this wasn't the intent of the shopping mall's designer, this was a delightful side effect" of reflection.
Right across the street was a new building that has modern architecture triumphant skin, the full glass facade.
This with the addition of it's westward orientation and afternoon sun, caused the shopping mall to have a "highlighted" facade.
After seeing this effect, I started to notice this effect in different situations across manila: City of dream's golden facade and this office buildings (excuse the water line, shot it inside a car) in Ortigas was the more notable ones.
Some more positive than others, most however were just unsightly to vehicle pedestrians and more so the residence/user of the building being glared at.
After some research, this solar glare seems to be a problem that is encountered often in our modern buildings (mainly due to the curtain wall). Most building codes also doesn't have a very detailed control on solar reflectivity. Without proper consideration, this could be damaging to a building's surrounding and in a way vandalizing to the facade of it's adjacent buildings.
Frank Gehry's Disney Concert Hall in LA, reportedly, experienced excessive glare and was forced to sand blast parts of it's reflective scale like facade to limit this. Costing the museum $180,000 to repair.
The "walkie talkie" building in London has a more profound effect. This skyscraper literally melts it's surrounding due to it's solar reflection.
Think of it as a 525 ft magnifying glass and with the sun at the right angle, the building has already damaged tiles, burnt doormats and bicycle seats, and even melted a car.
The building was now forced to add louvers across the whole facade to lessen the glare.
History has shown how important solar orientation is to a building, Greeks use the oculus as a way to guide light into their dome. Egyptians orient pyramids and their temple's in reference to the sun and how it would light the monuments.
The Main Temple at Abu Simbel is one of the most interesting examples, the inner tomb is dark for most of the year except for the two days of Ramses II birthday celebration, where a column of the sun's light would enter and shine upon the statue of Ramses and the two sun god beside him.
Guess we have a lot more to consider and learn with our modern materials and buildings.
Have you ever experienced this? Share your thoughts and comments with us.
References:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/02/arts/design/gehry-would-blast-glare-off-los-angeles-showpiece.html?_r=0
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2786723/London-skyscraper-Walkie-Talkie-melted-cars-reflecting-sunlight-fitted-shading.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/02/0221_abusimbel.html