Hey it's alright, it's own dog if you like, you know, a James Brown thing.

I just liked it when I saw it - it's different..

You look at those cranes and wonder how they don't buckle at the bottom, such is the weight bearing down on them.
I can't say I've seen too many building built with cranes in this position. The cranes are usually a lot smaller, and perched on top of the rising core.
Do these Doka's not allow for that??

It's a pity too, that no-one who is actually working on the building has posted on here.

I remember when Taipei 101 was being built, and I followed it's progress, many a picture was taken on the building.

What's happened to Subtract, wasn't he involved?


Mmm, just been looking on the Skycraperpage.com site, and saw the Eureka building in Melbourne which kind of answers my questions.

Look at the Doka on this thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To be 975 Ft high.
With a crane on top, and a crane attached to the building.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/pookey1967/4023140_4047.jpg

Seen this building before its awful

I saw Eureka in March. I quite liked it, and I wouldn't complain if that appeared next to Piccadilly station.

Melbourne is going through a 'trying to be bigger and better than Sydney' obsession, much to the amusement of most Sydneysiders.

Eureka's a beauty. I thought it was a bit tacky to be fair, but now the cladding has passed the weird wedgey bits, it really does look class. That's a very old pic. It's not far from topping out now I think. The observation tower will probably destroy it though.

The most recent pics on the Aussie threads look different from what you'd imagine. I've never seen a render of the finished article, but so far.......so good.

back to sub

i think them red lights on top will TOP it off nicely

Been down to gloriously sunny Manchester today, and it looked magnificent. It means business from almost any angle - St. Ann's Sq, Peter's Sq, GMEX, Deansgate etc... Not viewed it from it's southern side yet, mostly from a northern direction.

few random pix from wednesday n thursday..

in between city gate

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v254/markdavies/P9210025edit.gif

castlefield - st georges

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v254/markdavies/P9210023edit.gif

from pomona

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v254/markdavies/P9210011edit.gif

Mmm, just been looking on the Skycraperpage.com site, and saw the Eureka building in Melbourne which kind of answers my questions.

Look at the Doka on this thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To be 975 Ft high.
With a crane on top, and a crane attached to the building



When you see things like that, in someway that Irritation "Brisbane" bloke who's trolling the Birmingham group about UK skyscrapers being more skyproders has a point.

I mean where would the Beetham tower or Holloway Circus building come up to against that?

Shame it's so ugly though.

I can see both DOKAs from my house now. :banana:

I can see both DOKAs from my house now. :banana:

lol

Well I can see them all the way from my house... in Leicester.

>_>

[QUOTE=caw123]Ta manc planner.



Tommy mate West Tower isn't officially under construction right now, as not a single piece of the building is in place yet. Give it a couple of weeks. Btw it's 40 floors, mostly residential, where did you get that particular info from? :?

Ah yes wrong information about the floors the liverpool lads seem to think its under construction though im not sure?

It is kind of under construction, they're preparing, but they need to dig a huge pit for the foundations before construction 'offically' begins.

Yesterday I found myself alone on the top deck of a bus going into town. Couldn't resist some photos through the grimy glass.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/caw1234/P9230002copy.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/caw1234/P9230004copy.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/caw1234/P9230005copy.jpg

Still had people in the street giving me funny looks though. Weirdos. Saw loads of people staring up at Beetham too. All around Whitworth St West, everyone is glancing up at it.

I like this building.

Don't worry about em Chris. Ugly people don't like Cameras'

Here's a couple from Today.

Looks like an extension to the Crane going in. And the Lower Doka rose in the last few days, they're not far apart now.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/pookey1967/beetham2409.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/pookey1967/beethamhoist.jpg

Excellent pics there Pook. How many more floors before the core's top out? cant be lomg now ;)

Mikey. I think the highest doka has 2 to go. Maybe 3. It's pretty near.

Here's another from Deansgate. Sun was right behind Beetham. Sorry for poor contrast.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/pookey1967/beethamdeansgate2409.jpg

Ive never ben so sure about it jutting out like it does once its above the hotel levels but looking at that last pic of pookys I think its gonna look awsome, its hard to visualise it with the glass all the way up but I think peoples jaws will drop when they see it for the first time completed

Ive never ben so sure about it jutting out like it does once its above the hotel levels but looking at that last pic of pookys I think its gonna look awsome, its hard to visualise it with the glass all the way up but I think peoples jaws will drop when they see it for the first time completed


RB

I personally think Beetham looks at it's most impressive when walking down Deansgate. Not sure if anyone agrees with me ????

Here's another from yesterday from the Midland Hotel, when I saw them hoisting a crane extension up, and another to show how close the DOKA's are in height.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/pookey1967/beethamgmex2409.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/pookey1967/doka2409.jpg

Can anybody actually remember what life was like in Manchester before Internets and Doka's?

Great updates fella's - your time and efforts are much appreciated.

It might sound silly but to me this tower looks very 'Manchester' due to its slab effect like Sunley, North tower etc. of course this is in a different league completly.

[QUOTE=pookey]RB



http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/pookey1967/beethamgmex2409.jpg

I would love a grand ultra modern fountain in front of G-Mex

[QUOTE=pookey]RB

I would love a grand ultra modern fountain in front of G-Mex

Mmmm, interesting idea. It's a nice part of Manchester round Gmex/Midland/GNT now. I remember what it used to be like 20 yrs ago. Not good.

25 Sept 2005

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y60/ManchesterImages/Beetham%20Tower/DSC05486.jpg

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y60/ManchesterImages/Beetham%20Tower/DSC05487.jpg

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y60/ManchesterImages/Beetham%20Tower/DSC05485.jpg

Took these today from the Mersey Basin

Across turn moss, a bloody bizarre site. Like some distant talismanic monster.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/caw1234/P9270003copy.jpg

Manc has really scored with Beetham.........
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/caw1234/P9270021copy.jpg

From the Mersey
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/caw1234/P9270014copy.jpg

From an M60 bridge
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/caw1234/P9270009copy.jpg

It's moved up a floor, 44 under the DOKA now.

Bloody hell, I thought it had topped,how tall can it get! Interesting shots.

Especially this one!

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/caw1234/P9270014copy.jpg

Some more from today
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y139/rolybling/IMAG0049.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y139/rolybling/IMAG0064.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y139/rolybling/IMAG0086.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y139/rolybling/IMAG0044.jpg

Great shots, she's really grown since I was last there around 2 months ago.

Looks like they're motoring with the cladding now, it seems to have risen quite a bit since I last photographed it, will look a million times beter when its fully clad

I still don't think we can get the full effect of this big bugger until the floors are complete and it's fully cladded (clode?). If we think it looks big now, just wait.......

Yeah I noticed the highest Doka has just risen. I must say it really is beginning to look massive as you approach it down Deansgate.
Lots of people looking up, pointing. Even saw someone else snapping. What time were you there RB? These were from about 4.30 today

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/pookey1967/2005_0927Image0004.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/pookey1967/2005_0927Image0006.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/pookey1967/2005_0927Image0005.jpg

I was there about 3 oclock this afternoon Pooky, I noticed lots of people looking up at it too and other people taking pictures

Pookey - your second pic above really twists my tummy (man).
I mentioned this building to people's bored faces last year (went in one shell like...).
Same folk now ask me if I've seen that big f*ck off building on Deansgate.
Cannae miss it now, that's for sure.
You get a good view from the exotic fruit section in Asda Hulme.

Magnificent pictures one and all. Here is an article / interview with Ian Simpson Architects that is well worth a read, from this months Prospect Magazine. Sorry if its a bit long.



Love Storeys

For a man that admits to suffering from vertigo, he has a strong relationship with tall buildings. As a youth he spent his summer holidays working in the family business, demolishing old mill chimneys; today he is building Manchester’s tallest tower.

http://www.prospectmagazine.com/images/covers/prospect_cover_new.jpg

When completed, it will be 156 metres tall and Simpson plans to live at the top of it. Ian Simpson Architects was set up just 18 years ago with partner Rachel Haugh and is currently engaged in building a number of the tallest buildings in the UK. Beetham Tower, at Holloway Circus in Birmingham, has 40 storeys, is 120 metres high and is nearing completion. Work is under way on Criterion Place in Leeds, a twin tower development, the tallest of which is 160 metres high, and Brunswick Quay, a 158-metre-high tower in Liverpool with 50 floors, will go ahead – if the planners allow it. The practice recently won a commission to build a 70-storey tower in Blackfriars, London and was even named as a semi-finalist, alongside Bernard Tschumi and Santiago Calatrava, in the competition for Ground Zero. “We are in a stage of transition and in the next 60 years we will see a different scale of development,“ says Simpson confidently.

When you look at the 47 storeys of Beetham Tower in Manchester, the building seems to dwarf everything around it, but even in its semi-clad state it doesn’t look out of place. It has a strong slim section that cantilevers out halfway up the building, at the point that the hotel becomes a residential block, and an emphatic podium that sits robustly in the townscape. Even the most ardent neoclassicist could be moved by the drama of the beast. It represents a major jump in scale and seems to say, ‘look, here is Manchester heading up the league table in the global city rankings’ without being a ‘landmark’ one-liner.
Beetham’s towers and the other tall projects need to be looked at with a sense of perspective. We are not talking Petronas Towers (450 metres), in fact, although Simpson’s new towers are twice the size of New York’s Flatiron building (1903) and a few metres taller than the 1925 Tribune Tower in Chicago, at about 50 storeys these towers form part of a new European phenomenon of city centre residential blocks. Working with developer Beetham, Simpson has developed a formula for a mixed-use tower that combines residential and hotel space that makes sense commercially and appeals to the planners.

For much of the past 18 years in practice, Simpson and Haugh were also a couple. It is a measure of their dedication to the practice that they continue to work effectively and amicably together despite the fact that they have gone their separate ways in their private lives. Like many architectural partnerships, they complement each other.
The influences that Haugh cites on her work confirm an engagement with detail. She admires Kahn “for the quality of detail and the depth of thought” and Jacobsen and Alto for similar reasons. Among their contemporaries she says she enjoyed the Herzog and De Meuron exhibition at the Tate, particularly the way in which you could see the development of their work through models and the way in which each project influences their other work and informs their research.
“I am more influenced by other things than architects, I hate architecture exhibitions,” says Simpson. He has a large collection of modern glass and a particular interest in Scandinavian glass and furniture from the post-war period. He is fascinated by the structural qualities of glass and the relationship between form and structure in the furniture and he would like to spend more time on research projects. When they are describing their partnership, it’s hard to avoid some parallel association with Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South; Simpson, the sharp and industrious Northerner, meets the bright and polite Haugh from the south. Except, of course, we are talking north and south Manchester rather than Britain.

Simpson was born in Bury, north of Manchester, the eldest of six, with four brothers. He describes the area that he lived – Heywood, a small town between Rochdale and Oldham – as the poor side of Manchester. He was head boy at the local school and then went to Liverpool Polytechnic, where Ken Martin ran the school and was, according to Simpson, a bit of a TV personality at the time.

Haugh was born and brought up in south Manchester and became interested in architecture through her parents. Her mother used to send her into libraries to find books about famous architects that she needed to prepare lessons for an adult education course. Her father worked in textiles and travelled around Europe and the Middle East, and Haugh sometimes accompanied him on visits to textile artists’ studios. In the late Seventies she left a rather demoralised Manchester to study architecture at Bath. The course linked engineering and architecture and was led by Michael Brawne and Ted Happold, with Peter Smithson as a visiting tutor. After university she went to work in Warrington with ASL.

When Simpson graduated at the end of the Seventies he went to work for Foster in London for three years and then did freelance work for BDP and then ASL. At ASL he met Haugh and they started doing competitions together. Having won a trip to Yugoslavia and £2,000 in a competition on his year out Simpson admits to being “hooked on competitions”. “Through competitions you could open yourself up to briefs and clients that you would never normally come across,” he recalls. “And it helped us learn about presentation, deadlines and time management,” adds Haugh.

In 1987 they decided to set up practice after coming second in a competition for Alliance and Leicester. Haugh left ASL to run the practice even though they had no commissions, while Simpson took up a full-time teaching post at Manchester University under Roger Stonehouse, one of the last tenured positions at the university. While the practice was still young they won a competition to design low-energy housing in Milton Keynes and the Architecture Foundation’s First Foyer competition for a hostel in Birmingham. They used the £2,000 prize money from the First Foyer on their first computers.

“Our partnership is complementary. We have always worked well together, and we major on our individual strengths. Ian’s skills are rapid response; the division of labour has become more emphasised over time, but we are both designers. Ian is the public face of the partnership, but we are 50/50 partners,” says Haugh. “I was younger than Ian and I have a surname that is unpronounceable which is why the practice took Ian’s name. Ian is involved in the early stages of the design work and tends to be the clients’ point of contact. I work in details and the delivery of the project,” she adds. “I use Rachel as a sounding board. I can have lots of ideas very quickly, so there is a balance, Rachel is more thoughtful,” says Simpson.

Some of their critics say their work is very macho, whatever that means, but Haugh’s response is not defensive. “I can understand where that idea comes from. But I think those people misunderstand our work. There is a subtlety and delicacy to it; you need to look below the surface to appreciate it,” she explains. “Our work is layered. It’s not of the polite modernist school, but there is a richness and texture that comes out of one material. In the first wave of regeneration projects in Manchester the work was all about texture, modelling and brick, and any departure from that was treated with suspicion,” adds Simpson. “People think we only do big, brash buildings, but we were also working with the museum on the reworking of a Waterhouse building, with a great deal of sensitivity. Aspects of our work up until that point were so small-scale that it was almost product design,” says Haugh.

The history of the practice is one of ten years of youthful enthusiasm and long hours followed by eight years of growing success that has seen the practice grow from two to four or five, then 20 staff in the mid-Nineties and 60 today. One of the practice’s first jobs was a new house in Hale; the cost was £106,000 and the fees were about £6,000 over 18 months, including night-time visits. “We never needed to feed an office, so we didn’t have to take on work we didn’t want because we had very manageable overheads. At the same time they believe that it is possible to make something powerful and positive out of virtually nothing and that remains a central attitude in all of our work,” says Simpson.
The practice’s first break came when it was approached to look at Commercial Wharf, a large derelict building facing onto the Medlock, in Knott Mill, on the edge of the Castlefield Conservation area. The practice agreed to work on the project and share the risk of the development. When it was completed in 1990, interest rates were 15 per cent and they had no tenants, but it kick-started an influx of creative industries to the area. Simpson and Haugh linked up with Nick Johnson, now at Urban Splash, to form the Knott Mill Association and worked on development plans for the area. When nobody came forward to occupy a proposed bar, the practice set it up themselves in partnership with Nick Johnson and his wife. “I remember the first Christmas I left work and I had to ring back to the office to ask how you pull a pint,” recalls Haugh. Simpson really enjoyed working in a cash business. They ran the bar with Johnson for seven years. In 1992, they worked with Tom Bloxham on Ducie House, a fast-track project to get new tenants into the building that included a nightclub and caf... bar. “We were interested in bars; at weekends we used to go with Tom Bloxham and his wife to London to do research on clubs,” says Haugh.

Then in 1996 the IRA bomb exploded in Manchester, destroying part of the core of the city centre. Ian Simpson Architects won the first stage of the competition and EDAW got involved at the second stage. The first scheme included a simple diagram that created new Cathedral Street. The scheme went on to become planning guidance. In 1998 they won the competition for Urbis in an anonymous competition. In their office they have the competition model, which looked surprisingly like the finished building.
At the same time that Urbis was being developed, the practice was talking to Crosby Homes about a site at the end of Deansgate. “Urbis was a massive jump for us. Up until that point our entire project had been about the £1 million to £1.5 million. To move to a £25 million project was a leap in scale and it started our interest in scale and the envelope,” says Simpson. Urbis has come in for criticism as a building that was designed without a real use or a clear idea of content, a critique that should perhaps be levelled at the client rather than the architect. “The programme for Urbis was a flexible series of open-plan floor plates; our response was to the site. Everyone in the city knew that the content would change. Flexibility was important and I think the building is robust enough to deal with change. I don’t believe building is non-particular. The aim of Urbis was to create a new public space. While the building does not pick up on local materials, all of our interpretation was specific to the city. And it set a marker down about what Manchester wanted to be. It’s about place-making, about supporting the aspirations within the city,” says Simpson.

An architect from a rival Manchester-based company recently sent me a graphic called ‘simpson wallpaper’, a simple image of an elevation made up of coloured and fritted glass, the suggestion being that all of his buildings look the same. No doubt Simpson is familiar with the gag, but hardly disturbed by it.

“I am accused of always wanting to work with glass, but really it’s because I believe in natural light and I want to maximise light and views. The use of glass has to be balanced with the environmental issues. The Hilton has a glass skin; it’s a combination of clear, fritted and opaque glass. I like to see continuity between the envelope and form,” says Simpson. The podium of the Beetham Hilton is clad in a pre-cast concrete by Trent that looks like granite from distance. It was chosen because of its colour, a reference to the blue engineering brick that was used on many of the viaducts in the surrounding area. The product has attracted interest from other architects including David Chipperfield.
The architectural moves relate to surface and form, which is why some of the practice’s critics write it off as shape-making. “For me form is derived from programme and context. Our buildings are very site specific. Contextually it is not the traditional response, but they could not be anywhere else,” explains Simpson. Simpson has played an important role in the transformation of Manchester city centre, but he does not prescribe to the new urbanist thesis. “The current urban practice of recreating streets and squares where they never existed is deceitful and confusing. Glen Howells has just won the Sheffield scheme with street and squares where there used to be sheds – it is lie. There is seven acres of land in which to create a new real place, but we revert to past patterns,” says Simpson.

The practice is currently working on council offices in Chester. “It is an unlikely city for us,” conceded Simpson “but it has excited local people.” The proposed building has a concrete superstructure and a self-supporting skin, and the form is moulded to respond to views of the old town, but it is wrapped in the trademark glass skin, incorporating sandstone-coloured panels. “You can’t get the levels of natural light required using something to match the local sandstone,“ explains Simpson.

The practice works with models to refine form and the work is truly contextual. It just doesn’t look like the critical regionalist creations that we usually associate with contextualism; it is about form and light rather than materials and structural expression. “I am interested in the surface of a building because it is the interface with the surroundings in the formal and contextual sense. I am not interested in the component parts of any one building. To focus on the components is particularly hard in housing and hotels, where you might have several hundred windows. Our work is not about the assembly of bits and pieces or about integrity to materials or about the modernist notion of expressing the frame. It’s not connected to the American architectural language of expressive structures. As far as I am concerned, structure is there to do a job,” says Simpson.

“The building may be more difficult to read, but it is more beautiful as an object. The danger is that to make it legible you resort to a language that, at this scale, becomes confusing. At this larger scale there is a clarity about our building that is not about window openings, where there is an entrance, it’s the gap between the large tower and the smaller building. At the Beetham tower you don’t need materials to code the building. There is a subtle layering in the elevation that you can understand; public spaces are clad in clear glass, private is fritted and the opaque glass covers structure and servicing,” adds Simpson.

Although he is not defensive it is clear that he believes that his work is not taken as seriously as it deserves to be. “There is a lot of polite architecture which is not offensive. For some reason Richard Murphy springs to mind. Everything has a straight angle and you can spend three weeks designing a sliding door. That’s not what I want to be doing. I want to tackle more important issues, to deal with a large contractor; unless we engage with them there is not any architecture, we just get buildings. We are not producing jewel boxes, but 200 apartments, and you can make a little bit of a difference and the city as a whole benefits. It’s hard work. Of course we would all like to design a library in a forest, but it’s not got a lot of relevance.”

The office refuses commissions for one-off houses for the same reasons. “RIBA prizes only go to polite modernism, usually in private houses. At £3 million for a private house you should be able to produce something special. You see some of these architects making housing and making a dog’s dinner of it and then they criticise us for a lack of integrity of materials and for not expressing a staircase. I can do that, we did it in the past, but why spend the rest of your life repeating yourself. It’s boring – and it’s architecture as a gentlemanly occupation,” he adds.

Rb - just missed you then!

Sleepy - thanks for article.

NB - another tummy twister. He's standing about 240 Ft up!
Now imagine if he'd had a camera :)

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/pookey1967/2005_0927Image0009.jpg

It almost seems like it's always been there now, it's certainly settled in at the bottom of Deansgate quite well ;)

Found this old rendering of Beetham and GMEX on a closed SSC thread!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v397/jrb041067/uttmw.jpg


Also found this early rendering of Brums Beetham! Not turned out like that cladding wise has it!

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Society/Pix/gallery/2002/06/11/Tower.jpg

Final one for today. Slightly different angle :nuts:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/pookey1967/2005_0927Image0010.jpg

Of all the threads I browse (inc. World Forums etc) this one is the best for updates and the variety of photos and views of Beetham (although Burj Dubai will overtake you for interest when it hots up though). Really top thread and one that I hope the Leeds boys can replicate the enthusiasm when Criterion Place and West Point get going.

Am heading up to Holmes Chapel in 2 weeks time for a couple of days with an ex Uni mate, and will certainly be making a detour to the City Centre to have a gander at this beast.

Of all the threads I browse (inc. World Forums etc) this one is the best for updates and the variety of photos and views of Beetham (although Burj Dubai will overtake you for interest when it hots up though). Really top thread and one that I hope the Leeds boys can replicate the enthusiasm when Criterion Place and West Point get going.

Am heading up to Holmes Chapel in 2 weeks time for a couple of days with an ex Uni mate, and will certainly be making a detour to the City Centre to have a gander at this beast.

Heh Jimbo, we're proud of her. Make sure you walk down Deansgate to view beetham. You won't be disappointed. When is Criterion Place starting?

Im convinced the doka on the LEFT in this pic wont rise any more, Im sure its there now, no doubt someone will prove me wrong..lol

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y139/rolybling/IMAG0044.jpg

Im convinced the doka on the LEFT in this pic wont rise any more, Im sure its there now, no doubt someone will prove me wrong..lol

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y139/rolybling/IMAG0044.jpg

RB

I think Chris said it's 44 under Doka, and if there's 4 floors in the Doka, then does that leave 2 floors? 2 Doka rises??

Chris??

Heh Jimbo, we're proud of her. Make sure you walk down Deansgate to view beetham. You won't be disappointed. When is Criterion Place starting?

the eternal question. I'm working on the principal that no news is good news and suddenly we'll have an announcement that takes us by surprise and they get going. Still no planning permission submitted, best guess is starting late next year. The West Point twin towers may well have already started by then which will take away a little of pain of waiting.

I'll bet Inacity/Eastgate starts before our two big boys. Boo hoo.

yeah I think thats right pooky, its 50 not 48 keep forgetting DOH!

I can't wait 'til the construction is fully completed to be able to stand at the bottom and look up...then get that funny feeling you get under tall buildings like they're gonna fall over (or more probably you)!

Yes lol - You do get that feeling, you also get the stiff neck feeling too ;)

When the doka's have finished laying the floors, is it the top of the doka that marks the height of were the blade is put?

heres another from yesterday

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y139/rolybling/IMAG0054.jpg

That sounds about right to me vertigo, that the bottom of the blade will start where the top of the doka is (is that what you meant....?)

superb roly.
thanks.

Here are some of my photo's from last Saturday morning just in case you didn't catch them in the photofest that I posted up on Monday

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/Robdann/Manchester/PICT0002.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/Robdann/Manchester/PICT0058.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/Robdann/Manchester/PICT0076.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/Robdann/Manchester/PICT0073.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/Robdann/Manchester/PICT0071.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/Robdann/Manchester/PICT0074.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/Robdann/Manchester/PICT0070.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/Robdann/Manchester/PICT0088.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/Robdann/Manchester/PICT0096.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/Robdann/Manchester/PICT0106.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/Robdann/Manchester/PICT0116.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/Robdann/Manchester/PICT0132.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/Robdann/Manchester/PICT0134.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/Robdann/Manchester/PICT0142.jpg

I took yet more today (Tuesday) from Castlefield taking advantage of the brilliant sunshine, so contributing yet further to this never-ending Beetham Picture Overload we have on this here forum! :D

We just cannot help ourselves can we? :lol: Every possible angle and viewpoint has probably been covered by now and yet they just keep on coming!

Will post up these latest ones of mine tomorrow. :)

Another from last week..

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v254/markdavies/P9230013.jpg

Oh aye. It's been a right orgy of Beetham photos recently.

There's a bit about it in the homes part of the MEN today. Ian Simpson on the frontpage.

He's having a 5m olive tree installed in his flat at the top - it will be lifted into place before they put the roof on.

Right - heeeere we go yet again!! :D

Who cares if it's all getting a tad repetitititititive over here in the Beetham thread with all these pictures we've been putting up? ;)

Here's the latest ones I took yesterday whilst ambling around the city in the sunshine....

Taken from a different viewpoint - the peaceful green oasis of St John's Gardens:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90031.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90032.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90033.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90034.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90035.jpg

This one was taken from behind the glass at the nearby Science Museum Engine Room (where I was having a brief wander around to pass the time as well admiring all the turbines and generators) ....

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90036.jpg

In fact it's so cool I thought I'd flip it over so the word reads the right way round!

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90036a.jpg

Back out in the street again:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90037.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90038.jpg

Shame about all the clutter of the van and barriers in the foreground in this view here spoiling the harmony of my shot....inconsiderate bastards!! ;)

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90039.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90041a.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90042.jpg


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90043.jpg

Looming over the White Lion pub...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90044.jpg

Getting closer up:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90046.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90045.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90047.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90048.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90049.jpg


A couple more taken from the Great Bridgewater Street viewpoint once again - but this time with better clearer blue skies!

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90050.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90052.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a257/MartianGray/P90053.jpg


Now all we need is for one daredevil amongst us to actually get onto the building site and mount the scaffolding and take some mind-blowing shots of a builder's eye view from the damned thing! :lol:

Bloody hell!!!! them last two pics it looks huge by the way do you think ian simpson will have to pay for his apartment?

Bloody hell!!!! them last two pics it looks huge by the way do you think ian simpson will have to pay for his apartment?

Lol, I reckon so.

He probably got a bit of discount though?


And Martin, St Johns Gardens has been done. ;)

I'll go for new angles only until it tops out! :yes:

From an M60 bridge
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/caw1234/P9270009copy.jpg


For reference heres this same view taken a few months back:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y57/caw123/P4270025.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y57/caw123/P6220025.jpg

My reckoning of the final bulk of the thing. Windmill St office block and Skyline Central outlined also.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/caw1234/beetham11222.jpg

and now for my picture from Gateway this morning...(can't believe this is the same day!?!?

http://tinypic.com/e1963n.jpg

looks like it's taking a piss on telephone house /\

And Martin, St Johns Gardens has been done. ;)



Yeah - that wouldn't surprise me, Mr Fucking-Know-It-All!... ;) well mine are taken in bright sunshine then......but like I said at the beginning, I reckon the only place none of us have been before in whatever lighting conditions is actually standing on the scaffolding itself with the builders permission - as if!! :)

That sounds about right to me vertigo, that the bottom of the blade will start where the top of the doka is (is that what you meant....?)

Yup ;) did mean that.

BTW some more great pics taken guys ;) I like this building. :)

Indeed fantastic pics all round....how heavy a casualty to the Hacker was this thread(s). The damage to the HCT thread was devastating. We'd photographed and covered it from the initial site clearing up to topping out only to have it all wiped :( Luckily we've still got most of the photo's but it's the banter, chat, comments and feedback inbetween that made it such an absorbing thread and to be quite honest priceless.....bastard hacker :mad2:

That pathetic piece of cum-crust also did the same to the Arena Central thread - 700-odd posts and over 48,000 views - one of the biggest Brum threads of all time.... Some people really do have too much time on their hands but choose to carry out pointless acts of sabotage just for the fucking hell of it. I hope their own comp got hacked one day and all their precious files and confidential details ended up in the wrong hands. Wankers. :bash: :bash:

I think it was Sleepy who came up with a very tasty theory : There was no hacker, the threads were never "coming back", it was just a sly effort at trimming SSC. Considering this place has been running like a dog the best part of 4 months, it doesn't at all seem improbable.

Nah, bollocks to that.

The forums are pruned often anyway. If something was to go it would be the skybars. This theory doesn't explain how the forum had it's slowest days after the hack.

Here's my first batch of 'never before or rarely seen views' of Beetham.

Some cladding to start
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/caw1234/P9290014copy.jpg

Only seen this one once before
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/caw1234/P9290001copy.jpg

Regents Rd Retail park. £1 for a big bottle of vhf, GET IN.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/caw1234/P9290026copy.jpg

From outside the old fire station
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/caw1234/P9290030copy.jpg

I didn't spot the symbolism in this until I uploaded it. Which bright spark can figure out what I'm about first?
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/caw1234/P9290022copy.jpg

Crackin pics there matey, the one with the Midland is stunning.

Hilton St = Hilton hotel

I've always maintained from day one we should have been referring to this building as the Hilton Tower . I mean Beetham towers are ten a penny nowadays as they're in just about all the big cities on this forum.
I'm sure once Hilton gets his sign up, we will have to call it by it's proper name. Unless of course there's an official name kicking around somewhere. I've always felt a little uncomfortable with calling it 'beetham' when they are just the developers, after all it's Hilton that's bankrolling the project and he deserves a bit respect....

Very professional pic of the cladding there :)

My mate said he can see the top of Beetham from his house down in Sale Moor. Thats a long way out.

these pictures are now important, because the tower is now going to start to change forever! The yellow doka thingys are going to level out and then the cladding will cover... I am quite used to the yellow doka's (one higher than the other) dominating our skyline, will miss it... I like the way that buildings look when they are half constructed at full height!

I dont think will miss it that much. With Eastgate and Crown starting soonish(Fingers crossed) hopefully new dokas will appear.

You doka be kidding. :p

That pic from the Northern Quarter is just amazing!
I love the way it's so bohemian and accentric...then with Hilton rising above all the madness.

Bit like a 'Manc-Muslim' Abbey Road.
Anyone notice the skull like face on the guys blue sweat-top...is it just me? Looks like a soul surfacing on casual wear showing it's hatred of the living...christ this is dodgy wine.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b292/caw1234/P9290022copy.jpg

For those of you who like to have a couple of shandy's while staring at their favourite building, can i recommend the new bar mojo on back bridge street.

great views of beetham and cjc from the upstairs bar. and a brilliant bar to boot.

Is this the new rock n roll type bar (lifted from Leeds)?
Now open eh?

yup, thats the fella, opens on saturday.

Hilton Street as well, with the new Hilton in the background, very good!!