Heathrow's Hidden High-Flying Artwork

I took the time last week to find the carefully hidden public artwork at London Heathrow's Terminal 5.

Between the multi-storey carpark and terminal building are a set of interconnected courtyards. Peaceful public spaces, planted with Plane Trees and up lighters, they make a nice contrast to the mass of passengers in the terminal building. At either end of the courtyards there are complimenting pieces of artwork, two walls, each with a semicircle of three letter airport codes of places served by flights from Terminal 5.

The North end wall was the most impressive (though it does not light up like it's southern neighbour), the black marble gave a great reflection in the afternoon light of the terminal building.

Richard Rogers-designed terminal has many design elements from an earlier building of his, the Millennium Dome. I took some film pictures of these and of the vast public space inside. More of that to come when they're developed!

If you've a little time at Terminal 5, take a walk outside to the quiet courtyards, you'll be impressed by this public airport art.

Curves, Vertigo & Wind Chill (And Wembley)

The shape of the paving, starting to resemble the drawings in the site office, as seen from 12-storeys up (click on the images for a closer look).

Looking over a wall isn't normally encouraged, especially so when the wall has a 12-storey drop over the other side of it!

Today saw a second visit to the roof of Swindon Railway Station's Signal Point building, continuing the Swindon Rail Station project.

Graham and Dan from Britannia (the contractor for the work) also came up for a look. Just before, in the site office, they showed the highly-detailed plan for the paving on the forecourt. Areas of different paving are separated by intersecting, curved lines (inspired by the gradual curved map lines of the Great Western Railway).

At ground level, the paving, curves and yet-to-be-filled plots of ground looks like a headache-inducing jigsaw puzzle, but through a handheld device (it was yellow and looked like one of those electronic signing devices when a parcel's delivered), the exact places are plotted and followed to the designer's letter.

Zooming in, the smooth curves and shapes of the design can be seen and understood, giving a flavour of what the finished forecourt will look like (click on the image for a closer look).

From the roof, seeing the initial area of paving being worked on gave a great sense of what the finished work will look like and the style of the whole works.

We're planning to do weekly roof-top visits to give a better step-by-step sense of the work from this great bird's eye view.

And finally...

The County Ground, recovering after last night's pitch invasion and win, next stop Wembley, now, wouldn't that be something to photograph...! (Click on the image for a closer look)

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?

The Ghosts of Wichelstowe

The shop-window of Swindon's Wichelstowe development, the canal-side houses in East Wichel.

Living in what, during the eighties and nineties, was the 'fastest growing town in Europe', it's sometimes easy to become use to new housing estates becoming part of the scenery. One development in Swindon is different enough to stand out and makes for fascinating photographs.

The lights on the unopened Southern Relief Road blaze through the night, giving an unsettling, eerie feeling.

Wichelstowe sits between the southern parts of Swindon (Old Town and Croft) and immediately north of the M4 between Junction 16 and 15. Known as the Front Garden and officially as the Southern Development Area, it's a collection of three areas, East Wichel, Middle Wichel and West Wichel. High quality housing design elements compliment the many green spaces and the extensive new canal network.

Work at Wichelstowe has slowed with the recession and recovery, but the road and canal infrastructure has either been completed or they are far advanced. As a consequence, the roads serving Middle and West Wichel run through farmer's fields, complete with traffic lights, pavements, road markings, bus lanes and signs to estates that do not exist yet! Some street furniture has been fitted, but remains in it's wrapping!

Having missed photographing the North Swindon development over the last phase of town expansion I'm going to make every effort to capture Wichelstowe.

For more pictures from this project, click the link on the right to be taken to Flickr, or click here.

Links

Wichelstowe Development Site http://www.wichelstowe.co.uk/template01.asp?pageid=32