Alan Lovell of Bannister Hall Landscape Supplies sent some great production images of the 7m diameter PietraPave granite mosaic I created, during its recent construction in China. The work has been manufactured and is now on its way to the UK for installation at The Flower Bowl, Barton Grange nr Preston.
By the way, I chose the worst day of the week to make a site visit to Barton Grange in Lancashire to check on progress – rained all day – the one poor day out of a glorious week of fine weather. Images not as good as they could be.
Notwithstanding that, the progress by Aztec Industrial Roofing Ltd has been brilliant and the main contractors, Truman Design and Build are now focussing on the interiors which are a hive of activity.
Externally, the rainscreen boards are almost all in place – with many exhibiting various stages of weathering, which starts with the exposed routed board being a bright yellow tone and gradually darkening to a rich tan / copper colour.
The Cutting Room in Huntingdon have now almost completed cutting the last of the boards and these will be shipped to site during the next week or so.
The last 2 elevations are now in progress, having signed off the artwork for the Elevations 7 & 8, the Sub-Station Building and Rovero End. My work is now pretty much done here. Going to site to see it installed is now a priority.
The last pieces of production artwork have now been signed off. Most of the front elevation of the building has now been installed. Weirdly I’ve not yet been up to see it. Been pretty busy here in Ramsgate.
A good thing is that Guy Topping commissioned a further piece of work from me – a 7m diameter granite mosaic of a large flower for the main entrance threshold. The manufacturing work was commissioned from Bannister Hall Landscape Supplies and will be manufactured in China.
I have been incredibly lucky to collaborate once again with Mark Durey at The Cutting Room in Huntingdon. I worked with Mark on the cnc cut facade for the new Heart of the Campus Building at Sheffield Hallam University Collegiate Campus. I am indebted to him for bringing these projects to life in way I could not deliver on my own. My colleague Sarah Alldritt also deserves a big thanks for her work translating my original artwork into ai vectors. Mark imports these digital files and re-builds the artwork through an Alphacam CAD CAM software programme to create the work. That may seem a straightforward digital process created by clever software …let me tell you that it is not. The translation from my artwork to end product is anything but straightforward in this instance. Mark is the key here. He has a clear understanding of how the programmes work – but – more importantly he is prepared to go ‘off-road’ and put his experience to task, problem solving and bringing an entirely bespoke service into play to produce the outcomes you see. I am lucky to have him as a collaborator.
Mark has an individual methodology at play whilst creating the cutting files. He adds colour to enable him to plan the work and – indirectly, I find these images inspiring and creative in themselves. Probably annoyingly I am always asking for screenshots of particular details.
The latest image by the client Guy Topping – the left hand elevation for The Flower Bowl Main Entrance – but how did we get to this point?
