Bridgewater Place – Steel City Snapper photography

Both of the images in today’s post were taken from the David Oluwale Bridge in the centre of Leeds. The first looks eastwards and downstream, the second westwards with Bridgewater Place dominating the skyline (I wrote more about that here).

Today was my last day of work before Christmas, and I now have a week-and-a-half of (I hope) leisure time, which is nice. I just need to put work stuff out of my mind – there’s a lot of stuff waiting my attention in the New Year – but I can hopefully manage to do that just fine.

Despite my breaking up for Christmas today, the morning started off with some sad news when I discovered that one of the people on an online forum I frequent has passed away. He died a couple of weeks ago, but the folks on the forum have only just found out. I met him in person earlier this year when we had a big forum get-together and he was a nice guy, outgoing and fun, so while I didn’t really know him well, or even share a lot of comments on the forum, it’s a bit of a shock to think of him being gone.

It made me wonder about how many people will just disappear from their online lives without notice when they die. Online connections are not always replicated offline and so there’s probably not a route to communicate someone’s passing to all the places they might frequent. Maybe we should think, before it’s too late, about leaving word for our loved ones to inform our digital connections when we depart this mortal coil.

Canon Sure Shot Z135 & Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted using Negative Lab Pro.

Taken 14 October 2023.

Two views of Bridgewater Place, a residential and office building in Leeds, UK.

It stands beside the River Aire, alongside which I was walking on the day of my visit. The 32-story building was completed in 2007 and within a month of its opening had been nicknamed “The Dalek” after the race of fascistic aliens made famous by the Doctor Who TV show (because of the building’s shape, not because it contains fascists).

While crossing the road in front of the building I noticed some strange metal structures by it’s side. I didn’t pay these any heed, thinking they were perhaps some sort of architectural flourish. It was later that I discovered that they are actually wind baffles. You see, it was found that when the building was completed it was causing a significant wind microclimate with gusts being recorded comparable to hurricane speeds when the wind was blowing from the west.

These gusts resulted in a number of injuries and accidents, including a woman suffering a torn liver when being thrown into a wall, a pushchair containing a child being blown into the road, someone being lifted off their feet and deposited across the street, and most seriously, a man being killed when the wind caused a lorry to overturn on him.

As a result, a wind mitigation scheme was put in place, with various structural changes being implemented, as well as a re-routing of high-sided traffic on occasions when the wind speed was high. Although the architects were found not liable for the death of the pedestrian, they were made to pay over a million pounds to the council to cover the cost of the traffic measures that had to be put in place.

One of the wind baffles is just visible in the bottom right of the first image and there are warning signs next to the building telling of danger from gusts of wind.

Olympus OM-1N, G-Zuiko AUTO-W 28mm f/3.5 & Ilford FP4+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 10mins.

Taken 14 October 2023.

Tag: Bridgewater Place

Two views of the River Aire (and losing people online)

Bridgewater Place – a windy Dalek