Westminster College in this week's Building Design

I was commissioned to get some shots of City of Westminster College, which have been published on the front page of this week's Building Design. It's a gargantuan £102m project designed by Danish architect Schmidt Hammer Lassen.

It's quite a showy building, with its seven storey stepped facade and dramatic atrium. However, the surrounding trees on Paddington Green make it impossible to get a decent view of the whole building, except from this one corner.

You can read about it on BD's website>

With the current economic climates and cutbacks galore, we won't be big projects like this - or Zaha's academy school in Herne Hill - for a long time yet.

Portrait of Tim Ronalds and images of Asplund's Gothenburg Law Courts Extension in this week's Building Design

Some photo shoots feel like a real privilege. While studying at LCP I spent a day photographing Arne Jacobsen's St Catherine's College in Oxford, and was almost overwhelmed by the excitement of gaining access to such an incredible example of modernism.

It was a similar feeling to shoot Gunnar Asplund's extension to the Law Courts in Gothenburg, Sweden. Architect Tim Ronalds had chosen the building as his 'inspiration' for the fascinating ongoing series in Building Design. The interview is published in this week's issue (1 October).



While admittedly not much from the outside – the building went through many incarnations and revisions and the final result is rather underwhelming – the interior is a real gem of Scandinavian modernism. It was  completed in 1937, and is full of sensuous curves and timber fixtures and fittings. The design is deliberately informal yet retains a strong and dignified civic presence, something that designers of many of the new generation of PFI law courts should do well to study carefully.



The building is currently unused, but journalist Pamela Buxton had arranged access. It remains fully furnished, and there was something strange yet thrilling about having the entire building to ourselves. Tim had visited the building on two previous occasions, but his excitement and passion for this modern masterpiece was still much in evidence, and he was an excellent tour guide with lots of interesting information about the project.

John Pawson portrait and profile in this week's BD Magazine

The latest issue of Building Design's monthly BD Magazine supplement is all about interiors. I was commissioned to interview John Pawson and take some portraits of him at his studio in Kings Cross.

The Design Museum is about to launch an exhibition about John's minimalist architecture and interiors, and there's a new monograph about the practice to boot.

You can read all about it here>

House interior by Platform makes cover of Designer magazine

A high-end domestic interior by Platform has been extensively featured in the latest (September) issue of Designer magazine. You read read the article in their on-line magazine here>

It's a very glamorous project (the guest bathroom's mirrored ceiling is something else). I'll post a selection of images in the near future so you can see for yourselves.

While it's always gratifying to see your images used in the press, making the cover always gives an extra buzz!

Zaha Hadid's Brixton school on front page of this week's Building Design

It has generally been a hopeless week for architectural photography, what with the torrential rain. However, I did manage to sneak down to South London to grab some shots of Evelyn Grace School for the latest issue of Building Design.

It's Zaha's first building to be completed in England, and is replete with her trademark swoops and crazy angles. I'm sure it's all meant to look very dynamic and exciting, but under grey cloud it takes on a rather oppressive and sinister tone.

Read the story in BD here>

Images of Dartington Primary School by White Design

As promised, here is a selection of images from my recent shoot for Building Design. I was really impressed with the design of Dartington Primary School, which features plenty of eco-friendly features and seemed to be going down a storm with teachers and pupils alike.

Designed by White Design, the £6m school resembles a village rather than single school building, with clusters of timber classroom buildings arranged around courtyard gardens. The roofs feature large rooflights as well as photovoltaic panels. Other sustainablity initiatives include rainwater recycling and high levels of insulation.

Read all about it in BD and on White Design's website, but in the meantime, enjoy the photos!

Photo of Dartington Primary School makes cover of latest BD Reviews magazine

I was recently commissioned by Building Design to shoot Dartington Primary School, a new sustainable school building designed by Bristol-based White Design.

The project was published in the BD Reviews special on sustainability, and was selected for the cover.

You can read about the project in Pamela Buxton's article here>

I will post further images of the school in the near future, so watch this space!

Photos from Rome in the latest Building Design

I was lucky to be asked by Building Design magazine to shoot the Pantheon in one of my favourite cities, Rome. The photographs were commissioned as part of BD's ongoing Architect's Inspirations series. The subject of this installment was Renato Benedetti of McDowell + Benedetti.

It was one of those very long day trips (up before the lark, back after the last tube) but worth it to spend the day shooting on of my all-time top buildings, the Pantheon, as well as enjoying an adventure with top freelance journo Pamela Buxton.



It was originally commissioned by emperor Marcus Agrippa, but was rebuilt in the second century AD by Hadrian (of Wall fame).



The Pantheon is crowned by a hemisphere that is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome. It's truly aweinspiring (and a little dizzying) to stand right in the middle of the space and look up to the oculus, which leaves the interior open to the elements. The floor gently slopes down towards the perimeter for rainwater drainage.






While shooting the exterior was no problem, the interior was another matter as no tripods are allowed. The popularity of the building with tourists also means that it is constantly crowded, adding to the challenge of getting shots.






One aspect I particularly love about this building is how it has worn over the centuries. Parts of the exterior look particularly ramshackle, which add to its charm and power. The portico is currently being restored, which made front elevation photographs impossible if you wanted to avoid scaffolding!

Photos of Grimshaw's extension to Excel in this week's BD

Following on from last week's jaunt to North Greenwich, I also took some photos of Grimshaw's extension  to the Excel exhibition centre in Docklands, due to open next week. They are published in this week's Building Design.



Those familiar with Excel will know that it's in the arse end of nowhere, and trying to get a decent vantage point meant a very long trek with the camera gear! However, the biggest challenge was dealing with extremely dull lighting conditions and a predominantly grey building.

Photos of Ravensbourne College, by Foreign Office Architects, for this week's Building Design

I have photographed the nearly-completed Ravensbourne College building for this week's BD. The £50 million building is located in North Greenwich, slap bang next to the O2 Arena (the artist formerly known as the Millennium Dome). It features an intricate facade inspired variously by Gothic rose windows, the floral patterns of William Morris and Middle Eastern "Penrose" tiling patterns.



The building was designed by Foreign Office Architects, who say that the architecture capitalises on"the tradition of arts and crafts schools in the UK, from which Ravensbourne is an offspring". Crikey.

Onoffice features my photos of EDF headquarters

The latest issue of onoffice magazine features an article about the newly-completed headquarters for UK energy company EDF. The interior, which incorporates sustainable materials and brand messages, was designed by BDGworkfutures.

I'll post a selection of images from the shoot in the next few days, but meanwhile you can read the article here>

Article on print marketing by Gareth in FX magazine March 2010

(Cross-posted from the fuwagardner blog): FX magazine recently commissioned me to write an article regarding the use of printed materials as part of the marketing campaigns for design-focused companies. It gave me a great opportunity to feature Catalogue 3, the book fuwagardner recently completed for architecture/interiors/design practice Project Orange.



You can read the full article here.

Bank of New York Mellon offices: Images in onoffice, March 2010

Some of my images of Bank of New York Mellon's offices at Canary Wharf, designed by BDGworkfutures, are featured in the latest issue of onoffice magazine.

The project is a case study as part of a wider feature on how workplace design can support corporate mergers and acquisitions – particularly from the point of view of introducing new brand identities and business culture. BDGworkfutures also designed offices for BNYM in Dublin and Manchester, all as a result of the 2007 merger between Bank of New York and Mellon Financial Corporation.

Photos of Project Orange's Whitecross Street project featured in archinnovations

I've just come across online architecture magazine archinnovations, which has recently published a feature on Project Orange's Whitecross Street project, which I photographed last year. You can read the full article here>

Overseas coverage

It's not often that I get to track where my photographs end up - particularly with regards to appearing in overseas design magazines. But fortunately PR consultant Caroline Collett keeps me updated with press coverage of projects that I have photographed for several of her clients.



Here are a couple of magazine covers for Blacksheep's stylish revamp of the public spaces at Novotel London Tower Bridge. It always amazes me the diversity of design and architecture titles around the world - particularly in the Far East - with these examples coming from Deco Journal in Korea and IDS in Malaysia.

Applemore College in the press

Frame

My photos of Applemore College, designed by SHH, have been given extremely wide coverage in the press over recent weeks. Here are a couple of examples, in Frame and FX magazines.


FX

Langland offices by Jump Studios in FX magazine

This one slipped under the radar. Last month's FX magazine featured my photographs of ad agency Langland's swish new offices in Windsor. Designed by Jump Studios, the interior features some great quirky touches that pay homage to the client's focus on the medical market.