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Swindon's Regeneration : An Historical Document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!

Jumping Off A Cliff

A small piece of paper sellotaped to a graffitied sign is not how you'd expect a project involving £50 million to start, but it just did.

Swindon has been late to the game when it came to rebuilding the town centre. The lateness was compounded by the recession, but finally, things are happening. Two schemes, Regent Circus and the Union Square project at Fleming Way will begin within months of each other. 

The old Swindon College site at Regent Circus is possibly a great metaphor for regeneration. Sitting right at the bottom of Eastcott Hill, it marks the border between Old Town and New Town. Back in the 1800s, when these two areas of town warily-eyed each other, distrustful of the new people flooding in. The college building has sat as a buffer between them since the sixties. The established Old Town and the new young upstarts building houses from the railway works closer towards the hill.

The Regent Circus plan will get rid of the wall between Eastcott and the town centre and create a new space for leisure. The sixties buildings will go and the original Victorian college building restored for new use. 

I'm intending to photograph the work from start to finish.

Updates to follow!

Photography & Deckchair Weather

Work continues apace on Swindon Railway Station's forecourt. With blazing sunshine and a 17 degree temperature everyone was in a great mood, plus it was a Friday, so that helped!

The retaining wall by the new drop-off point.

Today's visit saw the retaining wall by the new drop-off point (located just along Station Road) nearing completion with the concrete now covered in tiling.

The paved area leading from the station entrance doors, across the forecourt, over Station Road and towards Wellington Street. Four different shades of paving have been used and a splash of water shows the varying tones. 

Big areas of concrete continue to vanish under all the different shapes, sizes, colours and textures of paving. Dan washed down a section of the main walkway that will lead across Station Road. Instantly, with the dust washed off, you could make out the four shades of paving used in this one section. At the moment, the entire site is covered in a layer of fine white dust, a wash will give the whole space a dramatically different look (especially to the Britannia team and regular visitors). 

A new light column ready to be installed.

The new light columns are in the process of being installed, making an interesting contrast with the originals (which are still in original Great Western Trains green and ivory from 1996!).

From the roof, the reality starts to really resemble the plans and drawings.

The current view from Swindon Railway Station's Signal Point building.

In the next week or so, the central area will be opened to the public, whilst work shifts to the areas that are currently open. Once they're done, all the pieces will become one new pedestrian forecourt for Swindon.

New forecourt soon arriving!

Come On Swindon!

A piece of artwork to showcase Swindon Town's appearance at Wembley on Sunday is being produced right now on Swindon's Whalebridge roundabout.

Mark Amis started off this morning drawing out from the plan produced by BBC Wiltshire after Graham Mack (the station's breakfast show presenter) wondered whether we should paint the town red for the big match.

Bite-Sized building Update

Here's a view taken today from the roof of Swindon railway station, the Signal Point office building, of the forecourt works below.

Looks like a giant game of Tetris!

Off to photograph another railway station tomorrow, the chocolate-box delight of St Pancras International.

Images of Swindon and St Pancras arriving soon!

AOP Landscapes Competition : Boundaries

The southern-most limit of Swindon's development, marked by the garden-style wooden fence at Wichelstowe. Click on the image for a closer look.

On a map, plan, or diagram, the border of properties, jurisdictions, and contracts are defined with confident lines, filled with certainty.

Capturing these lines, the exact point where one thing ends and another begins, through photographs, creates a tension and uncertainty.

Blackhorse Way runs out of road and dissolves into the fields of Wichelstowe. Click on the image for a closer look.

Taken at the current northern and southern limits of development in Swindon, these images show the purgatory where boundaries exist within the landscape, contrasting with our expectations and plans.

More images from this project can be seen on Flickr, click here.

Advertising Applications : Artsite Campaign

The dramatic lighting from the National Trust building does most of the work for us! Click on the image for a closer look. 

Art and access to art are not 'added extras' in life and should have the same importance placed upon them as essential services for a society.

So how do you change the perception of art as an 'added extra' and for a niche of people?

In a localised advertising campaign that uses the locations as much as the artwork themselves to challenge preconceptions and ask questions, that's how!

As part of the Advertising Applications unit fellow student Ed Howell and I took an advertising campaign for the Artsite Post Modern Gallery from conception through to execution, and all points in between.

The mixture of light and textures at Wharf Green suits The Green Man sculpture. Click on the image for a closer look.

Initial ideas highlighted the theme of hidden art in Swindon, that locally much goes on, but above the surface some people may struggle to realise the scale and depth of activities.

In short, we wanted to show how art in Swindon is on your doorstep - by putting it there.

For the full set of images from the campaign, click on the link to the right, or here..

Links

Artsite Post Modern Gallery : http://artsite.ltd.uk/

Ed Howell : http://edwardhowellphotography.wordpress.com/

Let's Take The Stairs

Ed Howell taking in the view.

Getting a perspective on things often means stepping back from them.

Or in some cases, stepping higher, a lot higher!

As part of the project with Forward Swindon on documenting the Swindon Rail Station Forecourt work, Ed Howell and I were able to photograph from the roof of Swindon railway station today.

Looking South towards the town centre, with the silver David Murray John building dominating the scene. The blue glass building is the Western Regional offices of Network Rail and the lower white buildings in the foreground are the UK offices of Zurich Financial Services.

The 12-storey building, called Signal Point is the second highest building in Swindon after the David Murray John building at the heart of the Brunel Shopping Centre.

And the view, even on a blustery, cloudy day, was fascinating!

Looking down to the station forecourt, with Britannia Construction contractors at work on the new pedestrian plaza.

Over to the North side, with a First Great Western Westbound train arriving.

Eggs, Boats & Mashers, Oh My!

Today I've been working on product photography, pack-shots of 'a to m' in the form of kitchen utensils, here's a couple of examples :

Lights, Camera, Artwork!

The view from the corner of College Street and Regent Street.

The newest pieces of public sculpture in Swindon town centre since the fountain have been installed over the last few months and both are now illuminated.

Here's a quick impromptu picture of the College Street Gateway sculpture in all it's glory this evening, along with the pavement lighting which has recently been switched on.

Art often has to be bold and big to make an impact. Most people see the pieces during the day, but they come into their own during the evening when darkness falls.

"You're a big man, but you're in bad shape. With me it's a full time job. Now behave yourself."

The roof of the Debenhams carpark would have to do, rather than one in Gateshead (no-one was thrown off of it though!).

For the Advertising Unit we're currently working on, one of the ideas for the campaign was 'spotlight flash' for subjects.

Philip-Lorca diCorcia photographed with a similar technique on the streets of New York in his 'Streetwork' series. Using a remote flashgun, with a piece of A3 paper from a sketchbook sellotaped into a cone shape and tied on with a rubber band and a sensor fitted to the camera and flash, it seemed to work! 

The camera was on a tripod, I scraped a mark on the floor with a stone, Ed checked the composition was right, then with a timer he'd dash from the camera to the 3 foot wall immediately to the right of the frame, jump up and direct the flash down onto me. We spent about 15 minutes getting the exposure right, as it was overcast and dusk at the time we shot.

I can't help thinking of Get Carter when I see these pictures (not that I look or sound anything like Michael Caine!), but this lighting could make anyone or anything look threatening.

Most of the 1971 Get Carter film takes place in streets at night using available lighting, giving long shadows and unflattering lighting.

What do you think?