A magnificent window

Brighton Corn Exchange window

Isn’t this beautiful? It is one of the windows at the Brighton Dome Corn Exchange after refurbishment but still awaiting its many of panes of glass (I just counted space for 185 of them). I have repeatedly been drawn to photographing these huge windows while documenting the redevelopment of this beautiful 200-year-old building. They are magnificent in all their guises, even with broken panes and peeling paint, but to finally start to see them renewed is very pleasing indeed.

Cataloguing with my camera the changes that a building like this undergoes during renovation has many satisfying moments. I find a beauty in all stages of the process, the early messy broken phases through to the clean and ordered final stretch. This build still has a long way to go to completion, but it is offering up glimpses of how spectacular the finished product will be. More photographs of the Brighton Dome Corn Exchange can be found here.

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Dappled light of the Stephen Lawrence Trust Centre

Dappled light of the Stephen Lawrence Trust Centre

The construction work at the Stephen Lawrence Trust Centre is complete, so my part in the project is finished and the blossoming of the Centre into a co-working hub for up-and-coming architects has now begun. It has been a joy to photograph this building and to watch it spring to life. I come away feeling grateful that my skills could have a very practical application in helping a charity that I believe in deeply. What more can one ask for.

For my final shoot, I needed a particular light to capture the sense of welcome of the building. When the sun comes into the foyer in the early evening there is a

transformation of the space. The shadows cast by the Chris Ofili window screen onto the white walls are reminiscent of sun filtering through a forest canopy. This dappled light also helps to define the volume of the space, increasing an awareness of the unusual triangular shape and high ceiling of the room. The new orange corridor that welcomes you through to the back of the building is even more vibrant in this light. The combination of great architecture (David Adjaye), great art (Chris Ofili) and great design (Gensler’s interior design team) have coalesced to create magic. You can see more photographs of this project, and how far it has come in the past year, by using this link.

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Snow swirls around the Stephen Lawrence Trust Centre

Snow swirls around the Stephen Lawrence Trust Centre

Last week I spoke too soon about snow-less Old England versus snow-bound New England because we have had the icy white stuff around all week. I am pleased that this included my site visit to the Stephen Lawrence Trust. There can be magic in photographing snow and its transformation of the familiar into something almost etherial. My colleague at the Trust pointed out that I have now

been documenting the renovation of the Centre over a full year (and in all weather). That is a satisfying thought and at the heart of my aim to capture the essence of a place through how it both changes and remains constant over time.

More photographs from this snowy shoot can be found here. Use this link for information about the new co-working hub for start-ups in the built environment that will be based inside the Stephen Lawrence Centre.

Chris Ofili’s design looks like snow

Chris Ofili’s design looks like snow

The Stephen Lawrence Trust is transforming into a co-working hub for architects, designers and creatives and I have been documenting this building process.

As you have no doubt seen from my previous photos of the week, the introduction of orange is very significant to the new design for the Centre. On my most recent

visit, the strip of lights under the balcony edge were on, turning this little corner so warm and vibrant it made Chris Ofili’s beautiful window screen look like snow in the background.

You can find out more about all the great things that the Stephen Lawrence Trust does here, a link to the new co-working hub website here and more of my photographs from this site here.

A working portrait

A working portrait

I think I should set up a page on my website just for photographs of workers and builders because I find them continually interesting to shoot. This would not be about the specific locations they are working in, glamorous or not. It would be about the skill, the craft and the graft required to work in the building trades. I will let you know when I have set it up. In the meantime, this photo is a candidate for it. Set in

an old cellar in Lewes, the single light casts soft shadows across a room filled with the warm browns of old wood and the cool blue of new plasterboard. Often I am rushing to catch photographs of extreme action on building sites, but here is a different energy of concentration and focus. Until I set up this new gallery page, you can find many photographs of builders working on site in my architectural documentary photographs and more working portraits here.

New oranges and yellows

New oranges and yellows

I was back at the Stephen Lawrence Trust again this week where things are getting very colourful indeed. The yellow that was being refreshed is the original colour of the stairwell. The orange is new and is now filling the corridors that link the front of the building with the back, bringing a shaft of light and life through the heart of the

Centre. This is part of a larger plan of creating a beautiful new co-working hub for start-up businesses working in the built environment. You can find out more about all the great things that the Stephen Lawrence Trust does here, and more of my photographs from this site here.

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