redevelopment
The rain came, after weeks of dry, though not all sunny, weather. In the damp, the cars coming up ashley road sometimes sound like the roaring of giant beasts.
On Temple Way each day, I pass an old office block, the romantically named glassfields. But in the 70s they hadn't properly invented clear glass, so they made it brown. The drab, flat fronted building is surprisingly large, adjusting the level of the roof and carrying on when you think it's finished. It's not been occupied since I moved to bristol. I don't know what the inside is like, but who would want to move their company into a giant office that looks like it should be filled with green-screened computers, typists and sepia electronics.
Now, finally, they're destroying the place. Not with the glamour of explosives, or anything calculated like that, of course. Behind the building lurks a machine with an immense loping orange arm and a metal claw. This started in the centre, tearing out a chunk. Every day I passed, more of the building has been ripped out. Along each side, the main pillars are exposed, the floors and walls between them scraped away. Now they've reached the ground, and I'm waiting to see how the demolition will proceed outward.
What they'll do with the empty space when it's over, I don't know. The plot almost opposite, over the river from my office, was cleared years ago. The hoardings still promise Bank Place, a sustainable, pillar free, office environment, but the planning application tacked on them offers a temporary car park until 2015. I don't know if anyone's told our CEO that's going to be the new view from his office.
On Temple Way each day, I pass an old office block, the romantically named glassfields. But in the 70s they hadn't properly invented clear glass, so they made it brown. The drab, flat fronted building is surprisingly large, adjusting the level of the roof and carrying on when you think it's finished. It's not been occupied since I moved to bristol. I don't know what the inside is like, but who would want to move their company into a giant office that looks like it should be filled with green-screened computers, typists and sepia electronics.
Now, finally, they're destroying the place. Not with the glamour of explosives, or anything calculated like that, of course. Behind the building lurks a machine with an immense loping orange arm and a metal claw. This started in the centre, tearing out a chunk. Every day I passed, more of the building has been ripped out. Along each side, the main pillars are exposed, the floors and walls between them scraped away. Now they've reached the ground, and I'm waiting to see how the demolition will proceed outward.
What they'll do with the empty space when it's over, I don't know. The plot almost opposite, over the river from my office, was cleared years ago. The hoardings still promise Bank Place, a sustainable, pillar free, office environment, but the planning application tacked on them offers a temporary car park until 2015. I don't know if anyone's told our CEO that's going to be the new view from his office.