GaryReggae

No, they can't demolish Preston Bus Station!!! It's historic. It has a unique design and I've seen this building before on the 20th Century Society's 'Risky Buildings' website. The Tricorn has gone, the Get Carter car park will soon be gone and so will Preston car park/bus station, all similiarly designed car parks. Disgraceful!!! The developers might as well go and pull down all Britain's historic castles and Tudor buildings, after all, they could make a fortune out of building yuppie flats there instead. OK so Brutalist buildings are not NEARLY as old but they are part of our history just the same. In the 60s, a lot of Victorian buildings such as Euston Arch were demolished as they were then seen as ugly. These days, that is seen as a mistake. Hast developers out to make a quick buck should think again and whoever it is that decided on listed budilings needs a damn good kick up the um...donkey!!! Sorry, this subject makes me mad. On another subject, does anyone here know anything about the ATV Centre? This television centre in Birmingham was, at the time, the world's most advanced TV studio and indeed the world's first TVC purpose-built for colour transmission. It has been empty since 1996 apparantly and I assume it went the way of the old Bullring but if anyone knows if it's still there or has any pics of it, I'd be delighted. If it's still there, I am going to go and comprehensively photograph it but unfortunately I think I'm too late. It was part of television history but due to corporate cost-cutting at Carlton, it was axed. The Meridian studios in Southampton are much the same (if anyone's interested, I'll post the photos I recently took there), they've been empty since about February when Meridian moved from a deluxe purpose built TV facility to an average office block with a broom cupboard for broadcasting. No wonder TV these days is so naff, all the studios have been closed. There were plans to build yuppie flats (my goodness, how original) on the site but fortunately, it's still there, albeit with boarded up windows. A sad sight indeed considering nearly 50 years of TV heritage. Even the BBC are contracting out more and more TV production, a common practice within most industries nowadays. There are threats over Television Centre apparantly, with the BBc having moved out many of their administrative functions to their exceedingly bland new White City office building. TVC is Grade II listed I think but that really means nothing nowadays. If the developers want it, they'll get it. The council no doubt desperately need housing sites. The developers sweeten their budget with lots of money. I work in a semi-Brutalist office development, certainly it was built in the late 60s. It is a fine example of 1960s government buildings but plans are afoot to relocate the organisation to a new building. Again, the likes of Barratt are sniffing around yet this is a perfectly good, structurally sound office building. A part of the building was surplus to requirements so was let to another government organisation. They refurbished it and it's now as good as any contempory development. The same could be done for where I work. It is also historic. The staff restaurant features a unique parabolic shell dome roof but it will soon all be gone. It could easily be refurbished but in the throwaway society we live in, it's apparantly better to spend a lot more money, time and energy on demolishing it and rebuilding. Sorry for this rant but it really annoys me, both from a preservation of historic resources perspective and from an environmental perspective.

Wow, this is a really unique building! Good work.

I suppose it's too late to put in a render request? It's a gigantic monster of a BAT though!!! Anyway, have a good time!

Date: 8/20/2005 9:38:10 PM Author: n74704 i think i may have found a simple simple solution to the whole problem. what is causing the renders to screw up are the amount of lights in the scene. a quick and dirty way of getting this to work would be to remove 85% of the building's lights in the scene. especially up in the office. because since the omnis are so far up above the model - it causes the light to swarm the scene. i have a good feeling that will be the best solution for this paticular problem.quote> Yes, good idea, I've just tested it without the tower lights and it seems to be fine. There were over 150 lights in total and I've taken out more than half of them!!! Removing all those lights will no doubt save NDEX TV a fortune in electricity costs!!! I will get somebody to render this and hopefully TVC will be on the STEX soon!!!

I like that K&S building, it's got a very nice 60s design, particularly with the sloping windows at the front.

Date: 8/17/2005 10:46:05 PM Author: n74704 as for gary's NTVC, the lighting is totally custom and totally unpredictable. where one light used to gently light up a section of the model, it now flashes out one single wall, but leaves the other intact. why? i have no freaking clue. this has put delays on many of the 'interior lit' models me and others have worked on. quote> Hmmn yes. If it's any easier for you, I could reduce the number of nightlights in TVC - with hindsight, I think there are too many.

Date: 8/17/2005 6:01:58 AM Author: frogface im usually not too bothered about how many are interested in a certain project, i just go ahead anyway. but if i start to get bored of a certain project then BAT begins to turn into a chore rather than funquote> Same here, I get bored easily which is why things like Unit 42 and Television Centre take so long. With my UK High Street set I'm trying a different approach - working on about 12 different buildings at the same time, then if I get bored with one, I can move on to the next one and come back to the other one later. I like modelling but nightlighting can be a chore particularly when test renders take a g e s...and it seems as though lighting, detailing and other tweaking takes 90% of the total time working on things. Anyway, you really should release London Bridge station, it's great!

Date: 8/16/2005 9:51:51 PM Author: frndofyaweh Got it Gary. Excellent description too! GaryR: I can make a 256x256 with higher number of bricks? less seams with more variatons. also will include standard sizes. quote> Brilliant, thanks, that would be superb!

You need to go to the official Sim City 4 site to get the BAT - http://www.simcity.com

Looks good!

I will be building a UK-style Post Office in the near future but I don't know of any on the STEX at the moment.

Very nice! I like the design of your terminals!

Gosh, I have loads of unfinished works as well! Some of them because I got distracted onto other things, others because they didn't work out, some simply because I got bored with them. This was going to be a 60s style luxury house but the design didn't really work. This is a contemporary style mansion and it's actually fairly close to finished with just texturing, lighting and detailing remaining...but I got bored with it. This was my plan for a realistically sized in-game hospital...however, as you can see, it would be a gigantic complex. Obviously it has not been textured yet. I might come back to this one some day. This collosal megastructure was intended to be a 1960s Brutalist style Town Centre complex. The green building was going to be a library, the yellowe a theatre, the turquoise a department store, the blue the council offices (mainly built), the red a shopping centre and the purple a multistorey car park. All of these functions would be contained in the same structure, linked by a complex arrangement of bridges, multiple levels and walkways. There isn't anything like this is real life that I know of, the closest thing being Cumbernauld in Scotland although the general concept (but not the functions) has some parralels with The Barbican. I pretty much abandoned this as it was a bit too ambitious!!! However, some of the design elements such as the parabolic domed roof and part of the council office manifested themselves in my later creations. A 1960s Sainsbury's supermarket, based on one in Shirley, Southampton. I had abandoned this but will probably resurrect and finish it as part of my forthcoming UK High Street set, it will then become a Sainsbury's Express or whatever the small local ones are called. The Arthur Flowers Comprehensive School. One of my very first BATs but it needs a lot of work. This was going to be a 1960s seaside development including a pier, hotel, amusement arcade, cafes and observation tower (the latter part being inspired by Great Yarmouth). However, I really didn't like the way the tower looked so this has been suspended until further notice. However, part of the amusement arcade facade design is being reused in one of my UK High Street buildings. This ambitious project was going to be an ultramodern Stock Exchange, there was going to a glass roof between the two lower buildings to form a trading floor however I got distracted on to other projects...but this one will be back hopefully at some point. This was going to be a small tax office and is pretty much finished except for nightlighting and roof junk. I hope to revisit it soon and release it. This is a pretty stereotypical residential tower block and one of my first BATs. My first attempt at batting Portsmouth's now demolished Brutalist Tricorn Centre. This project was doomed from the beginning as the building was extremely complex and I had no plans of it. However, I am currently in negotiation with Portsmouth City Council and hope to have copies of the original architectural plans soon, then I will start from scratch and build an accurate representation of the huge complex. Unit 42, a contemporary apartment complex and nearly finished. This is by no means abandoned and merely got put aside to work on Television Centre and then UK High Street. However, Unit 42 will be my main priority once I've finished UK High Street. Withewood Mansions, a real 1960s block of R$$ flats in Shirley, Southampton. The modelling is nearly complete but I became disillusioned as rendering it didn't do it any justice...but I will revisit at some point. So there you go! A rather large compendium of unfinished or abandoned buildings! If anyone has any particular requests, then let me know which ones you want and I'll try and 'hurry up'!!!

Hi frndofyaweh, I could really do with some good seamless brick textures, all the ones I have don't tile very well and aren't big enough to be used without tiling. What would be ideal is bricks that look about 50 years old so a little weathered but not too much but the mortar should look quite dirty. If possible, could you please create 3 variations of this texture, each with a different colour bricks? 1. standard brick red, 2. beige-brown, 3. Conker-brown. Again, they need to be seamless so I can tile them without the edges showing. That would be superb and will help me greatly! Thanks, Gary

Wow yes, I love those 60s flats, very good (and right up my street, so to speak)!

Try adding a UVW map to the lattice...some shapes will not show without one.

Wow, that hotel complex looks superb!

Oh yes, I like that Ontario University building! I was in London on Saturday so I took the opportunity to photograph some fine Brutalist architecture there: Here is just a selection, you can see all of the photos here: http://www.garyreggae.co.uk/photos/london6aug2005.htm The back of Centrepoint, Tottenham Court Road. A very Brutalist facade!!! Close up detail of Smithfield Poultry Market, although it's out of shot, this building features one of the finest concrete domed parabolic shell roofs in Europe. Unfortunately, it is threatened with demolition, along with the magnificent adjoining Victorian buildings that make up the older part of the market complex. Great Arthur House, part of the Golden Lane Estate, immediately north of The Barbican and an earlier project by the same architectural practice. The roof is clearly inspired by Le Corbusier's Indian buildings. The Barbican Arts Centre, a labyrinth of passageways and corridors and fortunately, a listed structure and more or less totally intact although the original direction signs have been replaced with ones that use the font used in cult 60s TV series 'The Prisoner'. How ironic!!! A view of the main entrance to Trellick Tower, W10. Once a haven for crime, this fine Brutalist monument by tragic architect Hugo Goldfinger is now a highly sought after address. Another view of Trellick Tower: BBC Television Centre, Wood Lane, Shepherd's Bush. I was intending to take a lot of photos of this building but the place was crawling with Security Guards and CCTV cameras so I didn't dare get too close to it in case they thought I was acting suspiciously. Anyway, this building isn't really Brutalist except for the East Tower, a later addition to the original 1950s 'Concrete Doughnut' design, however lots of bits have been added on since the complex opened so it is now a confusing hotchpotch of different architectural styles. I did have a photo of the front of TVC too but I accidentially deleted it from the camera, if anyone knows of any good (freeware!) undelete utilities I would be eternally grateful! The Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre, Lambeth. This is an imfamous structure and it will almost certainly be reveloped in the near future. It doesn't look that Brutalist any more thanks to the cladding but it was opened in the 1960s as can be seen from the mid-rise office block, which bears a striking resemblence to Granada's offices in Manchester. Close-up of some Brutalist flats near Elephant & Castle: Some Corbusier-inspired flats in Lambeth: Very utilitarian flats in Lambeth: A VERY interesting Brutalist design can be seen in this block of flats, again, in Lambeth (actually there are two or three of these blocks!) Some more 60s flats in Lambeth: There are also some very interesting Brutalist walk-up flats next to the railway line somewhere near Vauxhall or Waterloo, I was going to go and have a closer look but ran out of time. Maybe next time.

I'm afraid it's PostModernism for me, rather than being a genuine new architectural style, it's just mixing up pastiche elements from previous architectural styles and it looks like somebody has chopped up lots of different buildings and stuck them together in a different combination.