A London skyscraper locals have dubbed "the Walkie-Talkie" reportedly caused parts of a car parked nearby to melt.
The Institute of Physics' Chris Shepard explained to the BBC that the building's shape and material casts hot sunlight onto the street below, causing issues for pedestrians and drivers.
"Fundamentally, it's reflection," Shepherd said. "If a building creates enough of a curve with a series of flat windows, which act like mirrors, the reflections all converge at one point, focusing and concentrating the light."
Think of it as a kind of magnifying-glass-burning-the-ant trick: the curvy, rectangular design of the Walkie-Talkie, coupled with its glass exterior, traps light from the sun and beams spots of heat around the city.
A Jaguar on Eastcheap Street parked in one of these "hotspots" was damaged by the blinding glare, in addition to one bicycle seat that was warped by the sunlight.
Experts say this is a recent phenomenon caused in part by the current positioning of the sun. For nearly two hours a day, an intensely bright, white light shines on Eastcheap, causing passerby's vision to be temporarily impaired.
This isn't the first time the Walkie-Talkie has been called into question. Some say that the building's design is "overbearing," in addition to damaging.
Commercial property company Land Securities is currently working with Canary Wharf Group to figure out a way to solve this flame of a problem.
In the meantime, parking in the immediate area of the glare has been suspended.
In 2003, a building that opened in the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles encountered a similar problem-the building sent hot beams of light to a nearby sidewalk, where people reported they were temporarily blinded.
"The building was clad from head to toe, right down to the pavement, in stainless steel panels, and they would send the sun dazzling across the sidewalks to hotspots where people were," architect Frank Gehry told BBC. "Local people living there complained they were having to crack their air conditioning up to maximum to cool things down."
