The Forum, Norwich



The Building

Opened in 2001, the Forum was commissioned to replace the library which was sadly destroyed in a fire. Hopkin Architects redesigned the old library site along with an adjacent car park to form a complete city block for the building’s combined mixed uses. These include library and archive services, local visitor and business centres, a heritage exhibition, retail, bar and restaurant facilities, and the regional BBC centre for television and radio. Commercial office space occupies one third of the building, generating further income, as does a new underground car park.

Constructed in loadbearing brickwork, the Forum creates a sense of civic gravitas. The three-storey building shelters a horseshoe-shaped enclosure housing a new public space. The semi-circular end encloses the library and provides it with a continuous elevation to the west, while the eastern end opens to the city through a spectacular glazed wall, framing the Gothic church tower of St Peter Mancroft.

Within the horseshoe, the new public space provides a space for people to variously congregate, linger in the café or orientate themselves before using the building’s more formal facilities. The courtyard roof is supported by bow-string steel trusses forming leaf shaped panels, infilled with acoustically absorbent material or glazing.

The Photograph

This was the one building that I knew I would photograph on a recent visit to Norwich for a friend's birthday party - I spent some time checking that I would be able to capture the whole building using my 15mm Laowa shift lens.

Taking the picture turned out to be the easiest part of the process. There were a few distractions but none that I felt couldn't be dealt with in post-processing.

Once I had the image cleaned up, I had to make lots and lots of selections, applying levels and gradients adjustments to each - the final image has 72 selections.

Working through each selection I created different treatments using levels and gradients to get the look that I wanted. 

At the outset, I knew that the main roof structure was going to be emphasised but in the original photograph that area was quite chaotic due to the frame for the glass frontage interfering with the roof structure. I had to go through painstakingly working out which parts belonged to the roof structure and removing the parts that didn’t. Once I completed that I moved on to the exterior parts of the building, trying different approaches to the glass before settling on this low key look.

I had deliberately included the steps in front of the building when originally shooting as I knew that the sweeping curve would feature. I also worked to isolate a set of railings on the RHS but removed them at the last stage as they weren’t adding anything to the overall image.

See more of my work at my website.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Former Chesterfield Magistrates Court

Image
  The Building Former Chesterfield Magistrates Court house built 1963-65, converted into residential accommodation comprising 30 luxury flats in 2022. Designed by Prof S Allen and Robert Keenlyside for Chesterfield Borough Council, altered in 1975. Reinforced concrete, with decorative stone cladding, and timber roofs clad with copper sheeting. Double fan shaped plan, three storeys. Original east entrance front has recessed ground floor with central double glazed doors now blocked with glazed side lights. Either side four windows with concrete louvres to the offices. Above eleven bays topped with gables, the three central bays have recessed windows to both floors. Either side the two storey courts have grey slate panels with side lights and set back grey! green slate cladding. West front has recessed ground floor with eleven windows each with concrete louvres. Above eleven gabled bays, the central three and outer tow with grey slate cladding and side lights with set back grey green ...
Read more

Glasgow Science Centre Mall

Image
  The Building Designed by BDP Architects and opened in 2001, winning RIBA Award for Architecture 2002, Glasgow Institute of Architects Design Award 2001, Bentley Success Award 2003, Dynamic Place Award 2002 the overall Glasgow Science Centre scheme was the largest Millennium Commission-funded project in Scotland. This is the Mall, the largest of the three main titanium-clad buildings.   The Photograph Modern architecture tends to feature glass quite heavily. This example is no exception. I have developed a few different approaches to rendering the glass in images, sometimes I abstract the glass completely as it if is a solid surface and other times I use gradients to darken the glass to partially obscure what is behind it. In both approaches you end up treating the nearest glass wall as pretty much a solid wall.  Reviewing my pictures from this trip, I initially discounted this image because it seemed too simple a shape - due to my normal approaches to the glass wal...
Read more

Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith

Image
  The Building The theatre was originally a music hall dating back to 1888 before being twice renovated before reopening in 1895 as the New Lyric Opera House. The theatre was saved from closure and demolition in 1966, instead the auditorium was dismantled and reinstalled piece by piece in its current location before reopening in 1979. This picture shows the redeveloped box office and entrance, designed by Rick Mather Architects and opened around 2007. Work has continued to redevelop and the theatre was nominated for RICS Awards in 2016. The Photograph This was taken back in February 2024 but was only processed this week. I like buildings with a good mix of contrasting shapes, and this is certainly one of those with multiple angles and the prominent curved wall. My main aim when processing this picture was to emphasise the bold, standout sign but also showing the entrance and box office plus the side windows. From a technical point of view, I used a shift lens to ensure that all of ...
Read more