Category Archives: Architecture

My Walk this Week – Morfa and the Tawe

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My walk this week is an urban one, although the footpath I followed from Morfa and the home of the Swans at the Liberty Stadium in Swansea, to the lake in the enterprise zone at Llansamlet, could in some places be mistaken for a more natural setting, if not rural.

Liberty Stadium at Morfa

It was a Sunday morning and although the length of the walk was only about 2.2 miles, it took me about 2 hours just to reach the lake at my halfway turning point. That is more because of field recording than photography but both played their part in slowing me down.

I’ll post some sound clips through the week but to start with, it was the structural patterns of stadium architecture and fence design that interested me.

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Bay Campus – Reviewing the Walk

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During my walk this week at Swansea University Bay Campus there were some beautiful sunny spells which allowed me to enjoy the campus at its best. However, below is the proof that bad weather will set in eventually! Even when the prospects look good for sunshine, these unpredictable days can so easily change and suddenly bring in wind and rain, even hail or snow.

dark clouds

My apologies for not providing any sound clips this week and similarly no soundscape to listen to along with the image sequence below.

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Campus Reflections

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I may have been a little critical of the architecture on my walk this week around the new Swansea University Bay Campus. Perhaps I should have remembered my own words and simply looked a little more carefully. In fact I did do this – I looked at different aspects of the buildings from various angles and noticed a wide range of patterns and shapes, particularly in the windows.

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Glass always provides reflection and this can also be fascinating but sometimes confusing. With the sun shining, the reflections in the windows were emphasised but I am sure when the clouds are dark andContinue reading→

Building Blocks

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My walk this week around Swansea University’s Bay Campus suggested to me that there were limited materials to work with when designing the place. I imagine that this was indeed the case with regard to finance (it always is), but it seems there may have been a restriction on the shapes that could be used as well.

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From my criticism of the architecture used, it might sound as though I don’t like the campus, but in fact in some ways I do. I enjoy the regular rows of dark rectangles set into the alternating colours of brickwork. I like the reflections of light in some of the glass fronts (see tomorrow’s post),Continue reading→

Classically Standing Alone

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The new Great Hall at Swansea University Bay Campus stands alone in the arrangement of buildings housing the College of Engineering, the School of Management and student accommodation. The whole complex has quite a conservative feel about it, but the Great Hall is very deliberately classical in style.

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Is this building and the rest of the campus architecture intended to present such a serious and sober outlook? I suspect it is.Continue reading→

Study and the Encroaching Sea

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My walk at Swansea University’s new Bay Campus took me up from the beach and over the constructed sea defences and dune to the new Great Hall.

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The layout and positioning of this campus is very attractive in the beautiful weather I enjoyed on my brief tour, Continue reading→

My Walk this Week – Bay Campus

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My walk this week took me round Swansea University’s new Bay Campus on the seafront along the eastern approach to Swansea. It was a sunny(ish) Saturday morning and the place was fairly quiet. As I strolled through the large open spaces between the buildings I thought “this is very nice and new in the sunshine, but they’re not going to like it much when the bad weather blows in!”

The Great Hall, Swansea University Bay CampusI started my photography of the walk on the seaward side of the campus and found, down on the beach looking out across Continue reading→

Changing Light and Patterns in the Pier

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The sun was going down on my walk across the beach at Colwyn Bay and as it did so, the light subtly changed. There was some hazy cloud cover in the west and so the contrast of light and shade quite never disappeared, but still had an effect on the atmosphere as well as my camera settings. The patterns in the construction of the pier were always there along with the colour, more or less strengthened by the sunlight.

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