The Glade 4.0

http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/eco-touris ... h-a-death-


When hotels attack: The Vdara in Las Vegas comes equipped with a death ray
One shiny-shelled Las Vegas hotel reflects the sun into a 150 square foot death ray aimed right at the pool area.
By Jeffrey DavisWed, Sep 29 2010 at 4:20 PM EST Comments

HOTEL HOSTILITY: The shiny facade of a Vegas hotel is reflecting the sun with enough intensity to singe human hair (photo: sirsnapsalot/Flickr)
There’s no shortage of sun in the fun-filled desert destination of Las Vegas. Next to the entertainment and the gambling, lounging poolside at lush Las Vegas hotels is one of the premiere activities.

While a person may be in the mood to soak up some rays, they don’t want to have their hair singed or flip flops melted by them. But according to Discovery Magazine, that’s the exact problem that one Las Vegas hotel is having.


Chicagoan Bill Pintas was relaxing by the pool at the Vdara hotel when he realized that he was beginning to get hot – really hot. He jumped out of his deck chair to put his flip flops on so that he could move to a cooler spot when he discovered his flip flops were to hot to even touch.

Upon making it to a shaded area, Pintas detected a strange aroma about him. It was his hair that had been singed by the sun’s reflection off the hotel’s shiny-façade.

Bill Pintas is just one of the most recent in a string of incidents with Vdara’s “death ray”.

It’s always important to protect your skin from the sun, but there’s no escaping the wrath of Vdara’s hot spot, except to stay out of it.

After hearing Pintas’ story, The Las Vegas Review-Journal sent reporters undercover to ask hotel employees and patrons about the phenomenon:

“The ‘hot spot’ was visible during one of the visits, but no guests were in its reach. An employee pointed out the zone and said it was ‘like a magnifying glass that shines down’ over a space about 10 feet by 15 feet, which moves as the Earth rotates. At this time of year, the bright reflection is present for about an hour and a half, both before noon and after, according to the young man.”

The hotel has reportedly known about the issue since its construction. Vdara has attempted to deal with the hot spot by putting up a special film that blocks about 70 percent of the reflection from the south-facing section of the building. Unfortunately that reduction hasn’t been enough to stop the steady stream of complaints coming from pool patrons.

AOL News talked to hotel spokesperson Gordon Absher about the issue:

“Hotel management is dealing with our corporate designers to find ways to create a little more consistent shade, but pools are tricky,” Absher said. “Building a huge shade structure is not the answer because some people want the sun. And the sun is constantly moving. It’s quite literally an astronomical challenge.”

Inquiries into other methods of thwarting the hot spot’s attack on Vdara pool-goers have resulted in quotes that run up to millions of dollars. Until a more effective fix is implemented, the best advise for Vdara guests is to simply to beware and avoid the death ray in the pool area.



Anyone recall this:

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Holy shitsnacks!

"We've got the only outdoor pool open in the winter."

Yeah, and in the summer it doubles as a lobster cooker.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Architects are primarily artists, not scientists, mathematicians, or engineers.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

That's awesome!

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

Unfortunately, this is pretty much true. Go ask your friendly neighborhood structural engineer how much fun it is working with an architect.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Or a CAD Drafter. My wife is one, and she spent a large chuck of the time at her last job saying, "that's not physically possible..."

Depends on the school from which they graduated, but there are some architects concerned primarily with aesthetics at the cost of sense (or cents). They in general consider architecture to be a form of High Art, and my general rule of thumb is avoid them whenever possible, as they also generally have an ego the size of Texas (sometimes deserved, mostly not) and lack common sense. You also get architects that are only concerned with function (and not in the sense of techtonics), but doing whatever the bare minimum is to meed code and cost. However, the practice of architecture is in general a combination of project management, risk and liability, and code compliance as well as creating space and form. Just like with any profession, there are those really good at it, and those who just go through the motions.

I would also point out however, in other articles I have read about the solar convergence issues with that facade, the architects for the project raised that point much earlier in the process, but the owner decided to move forward. At one point, they even included a bid item for a solar film to be applied to the building to eliminate the problem, but the owner rejected it. But, this is pretty typical. Architects provide options for solutions, not dictate the solution, and in a lot of cases, especially on larger projects like this, the owner makes the call on what is or isn't part of the project, what gets cut during VE, and in a lot of cases, focus on a design that may or may not be practical out of personal taste (such as this building).

As for the comment about structural engineers... there are good ones, and then are those that come out of school without any capacity to actually design a structural frame unless it is some exceptionally simple system, and if they can't shoe horn in their "comfortable" design solution into everything, they try to force the space and building to conform. There is a reason that most successful architects have a very small group of engineers with which they will work (Struct, Civil, MEP, etc).

And CAD drafters are a funny group. In my experience, the best ones are those that have 4 year BS degrees in an architectural field (there are no 4 year degrees in architecture... there are 4 year degrees in what would be considered Pre-Arch, 5 yr BS/BA degrees and MArch degrees.... only the 5yr and MArch degrees qualify you to take the exams), as they in general have the intelligence to understand the relationships between building components, can think 3 dimensionally when drawings a section, and will understand how the components extend and intersect further along the cut. etc. These are the ones in general you can give a beginning drawing and have them start to flesh out the details of construction. CAD Drafters coming out of 2 yr drafting programs tend to be the type to think after a couple years in the field, they know as much or can do as much as the architects managing the project, because they can properly copy a typical detail from one project to the next, and identify the components in the detail.