They can reflect enough light to melt cars:
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23944679
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2786723/London-skys...
https://wonderfulengineering.com/skyscraper-literally-melts-...
The brain avoids looking at glassy skyscrapers
31–40 of 66 posts
Re: The brain avoids looking at glassy skyscrapers
#32The second image doesn't have anything else in the image to look at, whereas the first has multiple buildings and plenty of sky space. This article is bollocks. They've worked backwards from a conclusion to find (bad) evidence.
As somebody who dealt with photography and cameras his whole life and took pictures as a professional for movies: this isn’t bollocks. The visual readability of an opaque non-reflective cube is always going to be higher than that of a mirror cube in a non studio environment. This is because your brain needs to do more legwork to figure out the underlying shape when you look at reflective suefaces that are mostly flat…
I think you are talking past each other. What was labelled as “bollocks” here is the scientific evidence.
Re: The brain avoids looking at glassy skyscrapers
#33Perfect design for Evilcorp hq.
Re: The brain avoids looking at glassy skyscrapers
#34Playing Devil's advocate: The glassy skyscrapers are a good design because you ignore them. So it's like they don't exist.
On a more serious note, this is kinda of an isolated part of Boston city. It's a port that requires crossing the bridge. The bigger problem is that they are building huge buildings with no connection to the subway/metro network.
Re: The brain avoids looking at glassy skyscrapers
#35Should we flag this post? The "science" presented in this article is so bad it deserves being called fake news.
Like the commenters mentioned:
- the photos are chosen in such a way that it's obvious eyes won't go looking into the buildings
- there is no mention of the sample size regarding participants and photos that were shown. looks like cherrypicking
Re: The brain avoids looking at glassy skyscrapers
#36The second image doesn't have anything else in the image to look at, whereas the first has multiple buildings and plenty of sky space. This article is bollocks. They've worked backwards from a conclusion to find (bad) evidence.
Isn’t part of the point of reflective glass cladding to reflect the sky, disguise the building’s bulk, make it less imposing, etc? If people’s eyes aren’t being drawn to it, then it seems like it’s succeeded at that aim.
If people's eyes aren't being drawn to it...
>Mother Nature, the architect of our perception, with a good 3.8 billion years of design experience, won’t allow it. We simply will not connect to a place she informs us isn’t there or worth looking at!
And I'd tend to agree. If the purpose of the design is to act as if there is not a building, act as if it's a non-place - then what should I remember about it? Why should I want to be there, if there's "nothing"?
Re: The brain avoids looking at glassy skyscrapers
#37Just for fun, here's how some of OpenCV's feature detectors handle the first image:
AKAZE: https://imgur.com/EvcStcH
ORB: https://imgur.com/YHSEDD7
I certainly wouldn't make any claims about what this says about the human visual system, but at least for these two algorithms they do seem to have troubles finding interesting key points to track on the buildings.
Re: The brain avoids looking at glassy skyscrapers
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
The author shows how for more classical buildings with more structure, the eye focus on the structural aspects of the buildings.
In a much tighter image. The last picture with the older building gives the viewer almost no choice to look around, beyond, or even above the building when compared to the first one. There may be some truth to the statement in the title, but these three images are not evidence of much.
Take a look at the referenced study. There's quite a large number of examples where you have plenty of room to look around.
(pdf) http://www.devensec.com/news/Eye_Tracking_Devens_1_11_18%20r...
Re: The brain avoids looking at glassy skyscrapers
#39Playing Devil's advocate: The glassy skyscrapers are a good design because you ignore them. So it's like they don't exist. On a more serious note, this is kinda of an isolated part of Boston city. It's a port that requires crossing the bridge. The bigger problem is that they are building huge buildings with no connection to the subway/metro network.
Silver line goes there, but I’m not sure how useful that is.
Re: The brain avoids looking at glassy skyscrapers
#40I like glassy buildings. Can stare at them for minutes; the article makes little sense to me. E.g. Hong Kong Harbour skyline, which is quite "glassy". Many people travel to take a look at it. [1] https://www.tripsavvy.com/thmb/SPLQhcPHF_u06LNEFd1qIc4p_3Q=/...
This image shows the opposite of a glassy skyline. The only true glass building, which reflects sky and water, is the one just above the boat. The rest of the buildings are more traditional sky scrapers with mixed cladding.