Demolition Glow

The sun going down on Aspen House.

The Disappearance of Aspen House

With demolition on the smaller sections of Aspen House underway, the tower is wrapped up ready to vanish from the Swindon skyline.

The Lost Streets of Swindon

When Ed Howell and I photographed the demolition of Swindon College at Regent Circus, we didn't expect to find an entire street hidden on the site.

As we walked on a soaking wet day around the front of the site, passed the flat roof library, at the back of Byron Street, the mud had been churned up by the bulldozers. 

They'd scraped away the top layer of soil and just a few inches under the surface was the brickwork of the houses of the now (nearly entirely) lost Byron Street. 

The flat-roofed library building, which the original line of Byron street went through from left to right.

The double-brickwork of houses from the 1960s-demolished Byron Street.

Byron Street now exists as a small stub at Regent Circus, but the original street went north to south through the former Swindon College site.

How Byron Street use to look in 1957. This is looking south towards Old Town.

For more details on the photograph above, visit the Swindon Local Flickr account here.

Swindon's Regeneration : Thank You & Good Night

The final job on the demolition works at the old Swindon College site in Regents Circus

The very last part of demolition works at the old Swindon College site this lunchtime, with crushing of a small area of tarmac from the car park.

Swindon's Regeneration : Past and Future Icons

The former Swindon College is gone, but are there other 60s and 70s building that changing tastes and attitudes to architecture will make us save in the regeneration?

Swindon's built environment is a jumble of building periods, styles, quality and uses.

The question that we will have to think about in the next few years is, which buildings we might not initially want to save, will changing attitudes to style and taste make us reconsider?

If you suggested demolishing Swindon's Railway Village now, you'd meet huge resistance from many areas of society, but if you'd suggested it in the 1950s, chances are a different set of arguments in favour could have beaten early attempts at 'heritage' and 'preservation'.

Will Swindon have to save some of it's large collection of sixties and seventies buildings in the near future when regeneration goes up a gear?

Swindon's Regeneration : Demolition Done

The hulking 1960s block of the old Swindon College was still with us in July.

This week marks a significant stage in one of Swindon's regeneration projects. All the demolition work on the old Swindon College site at Regent Circus should be finished by the end of this week.

Considering how long it's taken for work to start, when it did, it's taken hardly any time.

The Vincents restaurant, which will be the site of the Morrisons supermarket in just over a year.

Located above Vincents restaurant was the auditorium with it's stage and dressing rooms, this the female dressing room with a script left on the counter.

A demolition few people believed would happen until they saw it with their own eyes. The roof being ripped off the main tower.

Swindon's Regeneration a Chance for Great Architecture & Design

Will Swindon's town centre regeneration lead to a new crop of landmark, award-winning buildings?

The Railway Village... Lydiard House... The Renault Building...The Motorola Building

All examples of important, nationally-recognised and in some cases, award-winning architecture, right in Swindon.

But in the last few years Swindon's perchance for landmark buildings has slowed somewhat.

With the town centre regeneration and the Swindon Masterplan, the will to push for new architecture and ideas in urban design is ready and waiting. Swindon could take a few risks in new designs and maybe see some more awards for it's built environment.

Swindon might not end up with dozens more landmark buildings, but the chance for high quality in urban design from the masterplan is a tantalising opportunity.

Swindon's Regeneration : The Lost Treasures of Swindon

The science, mathematics and technology-themed artwork.

Sitting quietly amongst the wreckage of the old Swindon College, unnoticed, undamaged, were a few pieces of treasure. 

As briefly blogged about back in May, the stairwells of the main building had a piece of artwork on each half-landing. I don't know how long they'd been there, but I remember passing them on the stairs in 1999.

The music-based artwork can just be seen at the top of the stairs.

Sitting on pieces of plyboard, around 5 feet in height, the majority were in the main stairwell of the main block. A large landscape of Swindon was especially striking, with another being a collage of mathematic equations, chemistry symbols and scientific drawings.

Another was music-based, with musical notes on sheet music and portraits.

Does anyone remember the artwork?

I had intended to try and save them and possibly find a home for the pieces, but they were taken down in the stripping-out of the college.

However, all was not lost.

One piece, an abstract work created by a student was deemed good enough for a staff member to have it on the wall in an office on the 3rd floor. While on a site visit, I carefully carried it across the glass walkway between the main block and tower and edged down the crumbling stairs, passed the pieces that were not to be saved. In a large clip-frame, I carried it through town and took it home. 

It sits safe and saved. An often-asked question is, what would you save in a fire? What single, or handful of items would you drag out to safety. 

Maybe the question for some should be, what will you save from the regeneration? On demolition and construction sites workers often have the pick of items left behind or the few highlights poking from a skip due to go nowhere but landfill. 

The landscape artwork.

So amongst the faceless and everyday pieces of administration stuck behind empty filing cabinets and yellowing memos pined to noticeboards, the kings of these forgotten artefacts hung proudly on the walls, giving flashes of colour, creativity and the legacy of the college that will long outlive these pieces we lost in the rubble.

Swindon's Regeneration : Cluttered By Space

An Artist's impression of Fleming Way after the Union Square development. With a vast increase in the amount of usable public space, The Parade underpass has gone with a wide 'shared space' crossing in it's place.

Urban regeneration is not just about what you build, but the space you create. In many ways, the space a building gives outside it's walls is more important than the space it has for use within.

The majority of Swindon's streets and it's retail core is strictly stuck in the 1970s pedestrianisation era in regard to it's use of space. Regent Street, Bridge Street and Canal Walk were made into spaces for people to walk safely in whilst shopping than dodging cars, vans and buses. The majority of UK towns and cities have main shopping centres based on this principle, but a policy of gradual improvement stopped for Swindon in the mid nineties and has only recently restarted.

Pedestrianisation is the simple principle of allowing people walking to take priority over all other transport methods. But like motor vehicles, routes need to be correctly paved, uncluttered, of the correct capacity and with street furniture and building design that allows a degree of wayfinding.

If you take a simple journey from The Parade to the bus station you can witness the historic stagnation of our public realm. The wide space of The Parade outside Debenhams allows people to spread out, but then you are funnelled into the subway beneath Fleming Way, whilst dodging people coming down the slopes from above and the shops either side of the subway entrance. From being in a space that was 40 feet wide, to a low subway, with barely 10 feet of width within just a few steps. Reaching the other side of the subway, the steep approach ramp is not wide enough, the funnelling effect in evidence, with pedestrians dodging those coming the opposite way and from the two slopes and steps from Fleming Way. The wayfinding is not in evidence for the bus station, there's little to intuitively give the feel a bus station is behind one of the Zurich TriCentre buildings. Taking the most direct route, at the back of Carfax Close, the path is narrow and obstructing the view are the pillars of the TriCentre, the route is then squeezed between the TriCentre and the bus station, until the walkway opens out into the narrow space of the bus station which has no waiting space for passengers. No visual warning is given that the bus station is immediately around the corner, the build quality, with no glass, windows or breaks in the dark coloured brick structure gives any cue. As a result of all these pedestrianisation issues, this short journey is aggressive, uncomfortable and unforgiving for the pedestrian.

The basic part of this journey, across Fleming Way, will be radically altered with the regrading of the road, putting the entire street on the same level, with pedestrians walking across the road in a far wider space. With the Union Square development, the improvement in the quality of the spaces around new and existing buildings is a main part of the design.

Good design can make the pedestrian experience in Swindon so much better.

Swindon's Regeneration : Now and Soon

We're nearly at the end of the demolition phase at Regent Circus, making now a good time to show what will be occupying the space soon. Developer Ashfield Land has produced an online brochure, with a detailed floor plan for the new development, click this link and scroll to the bottom of the page to download the plan. 

Here's some of the artist's impressions, with best matches from the pictures I've been taking, helping to give a visual reference point for each image.

This picture is slightly too far to the left, with the matching point for this view across Regent Circus being at the crossing point in the lower right of the photograph.

An artist's impression of the Regent Circus development, viewed from the crossing at the corner next to the Central Library.

The crossing points and roadways become what's called 'shared space' where roads and paths are not distinctly defined, heightening drivers and pedestrians attention. The building will only be around half the height of the tall college tower.

Taken from Western Street, looking down towards the corner of Rolleston and Edmund Streets.

The same viewpoint, showing the tallest block as the cinema, with the spiral allowing access between floors on the  450 space car park.

The road layout remains the same, with an entrance to the multi-storey car park and pedestrian entrance to the main development at the corner of Rolleston and Edmund Streets.

On the corner of Rolleston and Edmund Streets.

On the corner, at 45 degrees to the above photograph, the corner of the Cineworld building should be in line with the nearest wall of the single-storey workshops. One of three entrances to the car park will be on this corner, along with one of the main pedestrian entrances.

Immediately behind the white gates, looking directly towards Regent Circus.

Along the same line, the main pedestrian street of restaurants will link the back of Edmund Street and the main pedestrian and meeting place on the edge of Regent Circus, seen in the distance where the round tower is.

I hope this gives you a better idea of what the finished Regent Circus development will look like.

Swindon's Regeneration : Back Down To Earth

A cleared canvas at Regent Circus.

The above picture is a photograph of, space. Not a building, or a person, but a large area of fresh air. Far off in the distance you can see the houses of Eastcott Hill. Yesterday, the final ground floor sections of wall were crumbled away by the Wring Group's machines and the former Swindon College 'modern' extension was no more.

All that remain are 20,000 tonnes, or thereabouts of material, metal, concrete, wood and glass to be sorted, reduced to transportable size, boxed up and moved for reuse. That should take a few weeks, then building work can start in October.

The small pile of debris in the centre right and the collection of metal to the far left are the last pieces of the main tower that were pulled down yesterday.

What also remains on site are the memories of classes, teachers, students, exams, assemblies, gigs, plays, meetings and much, much more. 

Swindon's Regeneration : A Change In The Air

A brooding sky, quiet street and birds circling overhead, give an unsettling feeling on Monday lunchtime.

Demolition sites can be fascinating places, allowing people to act like children and watch big machines crush buildings to dust. But give a change in the weather, a break in work and an absence of people and they can take on a sinister air.

The only sound alongside the breeze was the gentle hiss of the water spray.

With a moody sky, the hulking pile (for it's no longer a tower) of debris where the central tower once stood threw-out odd shapes against the sky. In Edmund Street, the breeze coming down Eastcott Hill rocked the access gates back and forth, squeaking and clattering on it's hinges. Behind the hoarding, the spray was left on, like a leaky steam pipe in a ship's empty boiler room. Small areas of dust would blow around the yard, bouncing off the walls.

On the hill, tables at The Beehive, overlooking the demolition were vacant, and streets were quiet, sitting in a purgatory. The neighbourhood seemed to know it was at a crossing point of eras, with time for the remaining one crumbling away like so much concrete dust.

Swindon's Regeneration : The Tower's Last Stand

Rest awhile and watch the demolition.

A new sport, non-Olympic based it has to be said, has been to sit for a short or long while depending on your day, and observe the regeneration of Swindon's Regent Circus. On benches at the bottom of the hill and mid-way up by The Beehive pub people sit quietly and watch the crumbling of the former college building.

The wafer-thin looking roof is quickly broken off and consigned to the scrap wood piles on the ground.

Whilst onsite on Friday we captured the roof being nibbled away at and come crashing down.

Anybody for some very last-minute careers advice in the library?

The last few pieces of the Learning Resource Centre in the rubble of the library can be seen brightly clinging to the wall.

In a matter of days, it'll all be gone.

Swindon's Regeneration : The Legacy

Curiosity across the generations at the former Swindon College Regent Circus site.

Often the legacy of regeneration is the least sure thing to predict or plan for. It's not exactly measurable or a tangible result, but the above picture I caught earlier today sums up one thing regeneration can do, it can spark an interest, a curiosity, maybe even a passion, in places around us.

The view looking north from the corner of the Beehive pub on Eastcott Hill.

The wider view of the Regent Circus site from the Central Library side.

Swindon's Regeneration : A Sign of the Times

Have you seen the time?

 For the first time in over 50 years, the residents of Edmund Street will be able to tell the time from the Town Hall clock.

Swindon's Regeneration : Victorian Glory

One of the two big decorative windows on the main staircases.

Tucked away at the edge of the Regent Circus site is the original Swindon Technical College building, next to Victoria Road. There's two great things about this building : It's not being demolished and, it's an absolute gem.

This is the view directly behind the big red doors that face out onto Victoria Road.

It's got some cracking features, including the main entrance doorway, the stained glass windows and the sweeping staircases. Plus, it's got all the signature pieces you'd expect in a Victorian building, gabled windows, high ceilings and decorative brickwork.

The spacious Burkhardt Hall, with it's grand wooden floor and views out over Swindon, did you have lectures here?

Home of BA Graphic Design Year 3.

The Victorian heating grates on the floor, with the 1960s door on the left and the 1990s white board on the right.

Right now, it's slowly faded into the background, with missing tiles, there's the constant drip-drip of water getting into the building. But out of all the buildings on the former Swindon College site, it's the single one which shall be restored for use.

The ground floor walkway between the Victorian building and the main 60's block was demolished this week.

Swindon's Regeneration : An Historical Document

When were you last asked to turn off your mobile phones and pagers?

This image I posted last week, from inside one of the workshops being demolished on the former Swindon College Regent Circus site, passed me by slightly.

I didn't read, or take any notice of the mention of 'and pagers' in the warning.

How quickly we forget old technology!

Swindon's Regeneration : You Are Starting Here

Demolition of the former Swindon College Regent Street site from Edmund Street.

For a world that's increasingly experienced online, with events seen through a glass-look screen, regeneration is refreshingly different.

The Swindon College sign clings to the wall for a short time longer.

You can produce shiny websites and exciting, eye-catching artist's impressions of grand plans, but you've still got to physically build the project.

For those residents of Edmund Street coming back from work tonight, their view and street has quickly changed.

Until that physical activity happens, all those expectations and plans mean little.

Bite-sized chunks taken out of the roof, with the town hall clock tower in the background.

The demolition of the former Swindon College began last week and the residents of Edmund Street are currently getting a grandstand view. The view of the workshop buildings will just be a memory in a few days, as they're the first structures on the site to come down with the demolition.

Our regeneration starts here, in unassuming Edmund Street.