Westlegate, Norwich

 


The Building

Originally built in 1958, this imposing office tower block was recommended for demolition. Instead, FW Properties purchased the building and worked with 5th Studio Architects (of Cambridge) to renovate and repurpose it into luxury apartments. As the RIBA judges explain in their citation "the building's height was increased by three storeys producing a more appealing and slender silhouette. This, together with new cladding, means that the development now provides a landmark for the city rather than the eyesore that the unused tower became."

The Photograph

When I first noticed this building I could see that it had a lot of potential. I particularly liked that the shop unit at ground level provided a good "base" to the image and sets some context for the building. I shot this using the Laowa 15mm f/4.5 Shift lens with a reasonable amount of vertical shift.

In Photoshop it was quite a big job to select all of the individual parts of the cladding without including the frames around it. Fortunately I am getting better at that type of work all the time so this one only took a few hours on selections. I also made selections for the horizontal edging in the various parts of the building plus the other faces. Moving to the retail unit I created a selection for the concrete frame around the windows but then another for the window panes and a separate one for the frames around the panes. I also created selections for the sky, foreground etc.

Once I had all of my selections it was "simply" a case of applying levels and gradient layers as I always do and building up my overall look. I wanted to particularly empahsise the pattern on the cladding as to me that is the most eye catching feature of this building. I chose to include a little detail on the ground floor retail unit as I think that this helps to reinforce the context of where the building is in Norwich.

See more of my pictures at my main website.


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