The Infamous Building That Exposed A Planning Loophole

An amazing piece of architecture is the work of hundreds upon hundreds of different people whose achievements and contributions often deserve significant levels of credit, with a construction recruitment agency helping to find the best people for the role.

However, there are cases when, despite the best efforts of the people putting a building together according to a specific design, the end result does not reflect the hard work of everyone who put together what turned out to be a flawed design.

Possibly the most infamous example of this resides on 20 Fenchurch Street in London, designed by Rafael Vinoly, the prolific Uruguayan architect known for designing the ambitious sweeping Curve Theatre in Leicester and the Tokyo International Forum.

When it was time to demolish and rebuild the previous skyscraper that stood at 20 Fenchurch Street, there were many designs considered to be its replacement, with the winning entry being based around a wide “sky garden” concept that according to the developer would have made it the highest public park in London.

To this end, the building could be positioned away from the main location of skyscrapers in the city and be wider at the top than it is at the bottom, causing its distinctive and somewhat controversial overhang.

The design itself proved to be controversial enough to make it a rare unanimous winner of Building Design’s Carbuncle Cup, an award for the worst building constructed in the year. However, it turned out to have two even worse side effects that led to an urgent investigation.

The first was that the curved glass facade focused heat energy onto the street below it, creating what was described as a “death ray” effect that caused the street to be hot enough to fry eggs on and melt cars.

The other part was that the size of the building channelled stronger winds at ground level, creating a wind tunnel effect strong enough to blow people over.