Biochemistry Building, Oxford

I think the Biochemistry Building was completed in 2008. Anyway, it cost £49 million and I think it was money well spent for ‘us photographers’ :-) www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2008/081212_1.html This is an oldish shot that I have been playing around with in Photoshop to try and boost the colours and contrast a bit! This reminds me that I do really need to get back to taking more shots of the Biochemistry Building :-)

The Biochemistry building opened in 2008 and below is an extract from www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2008/081212_1.html . “The new £49 million, 12,000 sq m Biochemistry building at the University of Oxford designed by Hawkins\Brown architects is now complete. The distinctive facility with its glass facades and coloured glass fins brings together 300 lecturers, researchers and students previously based in a number of separate buildings across the University’s Science Area. Inside, a large open atrium with breakout spaces and specially commissioned artworks encourages collaboration between the researchers. The transparent glass exterior of the building makes the laboratories with biomedical researchers at work visible from the outside. Coloured glass fins all around the building cast changing patterns of light while solar cells on the roof provide a significant part of the building’s electricity.” In my opinion no visit to Oxford is complete without visiting the University of Oxford Biochemistry Building. I have taken lots and lots and lots of shots here :-) The light and colours change many times during a day :-)

Last Thursday I decided to take advantage of Public Transport (i.e. the bus!!) and go to Oxford. When I left Aylesbury the sun was shining and the sky was a beautiful blue! We hit drainage works on the approach to Oxford and pretty much came to a standstill. It took forever to get past these works!! And, the nearer we got to the city centre the cloudier and the more overcast it got!! You really do need the sun to be out if you want to photograph the Biochemistry Building. But, I thought I would at least walk by and believe it or not as I approached the Bio Building the sun broke through!! Someone must have been looking out for me :-)))

This was taken with my compact and ‘cos I was pointing the camera upwards the verticals and horizontals were all over the place :-)) I have tried to correct this in Photoshop but not entirely sure if I have fully succeeded :-)) This shot shows the main entrance. You do get different colours here but the colours tend to be more spectacular when taking shots of the other sides of the building. As with the rest of the building the colours change depending upon the light and the time of day. There is a café within the building and it has always surprised me that even though this is a University building anyone can just walk in and visit the café :-) From the Department of Biochemistry website - “The Biochemistry Department is part of the University of Oxford's Medical Sciences Division, the largest of the University's four academic divisions and ranked third in the world for Biomedicine. According to the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, 75% of research activity within the Department is rated world-class quality in terms of significance, rigour and originality, making it the highest rated Life Sciences Department within a UK university. The Department moved into a brand new purpose-built building during the Autumn of 2008 which was designed to promote interaction and collaboration as well as provide state-of-the-art facilities for all staff. There are about thirty-five academic staff, one hundred postdoctoral research workers and one hundred and fifty postgraduate students. Members of other departments also contribute to teaching, including lecturers in physiology, pathology, pharmacology, clinical biochemistry and zoology. Although large, the Department is not impersonal and has a friendly atmosphere.”

And.................another shot of the Bio Building :-)

And...................there's more! Another shot of the Biochemistry Building :-)

Time for another shot of the Bio Building methinks :-)

This was quite an old shot of the Oxford University Biochemistry Building and I thought it might work as an Orb :-)))

~ Explored! ~ Thank you very much :-))) And, there's more...... Haven't uploaded a shot of the Bio Buillding for a while so here is one taken back in December :-)