There’s nothing wrong with the building! The building is fantastic. It’s a brilliant display of architecture and how glass really is the most fundamental part of a new-age skyscraper. However, the problems start once the building is complete.

One such problem is the maintenance. The glass on the building isn’t self cleaning, so this job has to be done by hand, with manual cleaners stood in a cradle, hanging up dozens of stories high. All well and good when your machinery works, but what if your cradle stops working? One such incident occurred just a few days ago:

[youtube_video id=”738ToPoHH0M”]

Don’t know about you, but my pants would not be in a wearable state after that. Before seeing the video I thought that the guy was just stuck up there, with the cradle close to the edge of the building. I did not expect it to be flailing around at the top in high winds!

It does sort of beg the question: why wasn’t the glass self-cleaning? The units are triple glazed and made in the Netherlands I think (could be Belgium). With the technology available out there, surely with so much glass, it would have been prudent in the long term to have made the outer panes self-cleaning to rid the need for external window cleaners?

I am just thinking out loud here and I am sure that there was a very good reason for the architects opting for non-self-cleaning glass. If anyone else knows, please leave a comment below!