What's Notable About Port Talbot 4: New Builds

 It is easy to slag off new buildings. In fact with some of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s, it’s practically an automatic, knee jerk reaction. When you look at some of the absolute shite that was built between the start of the 60s and the end of the 80s, who can blame us for reacting that way? So, as I said, it’s easy to slag off a new building.

Last time out I wrote about and showed you some of the most recent redevelopment projects in the centre of town, where existing buildings either have already been remodelled and repurposed, or where they are in the process of this. This time, let’s talk about brand new buildings. Well, I say brand new. Actually, for my purposes, it’s anything built since the start of the 21^st century.

Now, let’s call a spade a spade. I’ve already on this very blog written about such bland, unexciting and disappointing developments as the Custom House block, and Ty’r Orsaf. Speak as you find, and I’m sorry, but that’s what I find. When I wrote about Ty’r Orsaf, I compared the lack of imagination in its design, with the slightly earlier Jubilee House in Aberavon, and I stand by that. 

It doesn’t take much in a building to feed the soul just a little. For me it’s the roof lines – it would have been so easy for a lazy designer to have covered the whole thing in one shallow pitched roof – and just a tiny bit of ornamentation, with the curved chromium balconies.

Let’s talk about the hospital.

By rights, this shouldn’t qualify as a 21^st century building. A lot of the land had already been cleared when I moved to Port Talbot in 1986, and there were continual rumours that building on the hospital was going to start any day now. These continued through the rest of the century. In all honesty, I don’t know why the actual building was delayed for so long. Whatever the case, the new hospital was opened in 2003. I think, purely as an onlooker rather than a user of the building, it’s a partial success. There is a lot of it that is long, low and rectangular, not unlike retail park architecture, if I’m honest, and not that exciting. However, even though the metal and glass opening is, to me, rather reminiscent of a large motorway service station, I rather like the bright and breezy atmosphere that it conveys. My earliest experience of hospitals was a very gloomy, threatening Edwardian edifice in West London. If you weren’t scared before you arrived at the hospital, it’s pretty sure you were when you got there. As I hinted when I was talking about Jubilee House, small things can make a difference. That curved glass canopy over the entrance is one – it would have been easy for the designer to give us something flat, or a conventionally sloped roof.

Speaking of the hospital, relatively nearby is a newer building which I like even more. This is the Port Talbot Resource Centre, where my own GP’s surgery is held, along with several other GP practices. 

I’ve criticised several developments in Port Talbot over the last couple of decades for a failure of the imagination – for playing it safe and aiming for the inoffensive factor rather than the wow factor. This building goes for it, and I’d like it for its ambition, even if I didn’t like the design.

I think you probably know me well enough to know that I think curves can add a lot to a building. In this one you haven’t just got the wide sweep of the curve to the right of the building, you’ve also got the geometric sharpness of the roof angles on the left. This is a building which has every bit as much self confidence as any brutalist monstrosity of 50 years ago. In a way, it’s a shame that this impressive building is pretty much hidden behind a typically inoffensive bland and uninteresting Morrison out of town supermarket and its car park. But then, where in town could you find the space to put up a building of this size? Hmm, I could make a suggestion or two . Having said all of that, though, it isn’t perfect. The use of different bands of rather dull colours around the curved section on the left doesn’t really hide the fact that it looks as if it’s been constructed from breeze blocks. It’s a shame, it just takes away from the finish and the effect of the building as a whole.

There are two more buildings I want to mention in this post, although I did think about whether I should, considering that I work in one of them. The Borough of Neath and Port Talbot has followed a very ambitious and forward looking programme of refurbishing, remodelling, and building brand new schools in the last decade or so. Two new schools in particular stand out, both in the Sandfields area, and actually very close to each other. The first, and slightly older, is Ysgol Bae Baglan.

The main building of YBB, as we like to call it, is a striking structure in many ways, and I have sketched it on a couple of occasions. I think it’s fair to say that you can see the same confidence in the design that you see in the Resource Centre. The main wing curves round in a wide sweep, which I’ve always though has the effect of giving the building a little grandeur without it becoming oppressive.

I like the way a broad apron sweeps around the curve of the main entrance of the building. I like the way that the roof of the main wing of the building slopes down in a graceful shallow hump – which accommodates a second floor along part of its length. There’s also a clever feature of the building that visitors wouldn’t necessarily get to see. Behind the atrium and the main entrance, there’s an open area between the smaller wing of the lower school, and the larger wing of the middle and upper school. The walls of both wings are faced with panelling in colours that have been specifically chosen to reflect the colours of the wildflowers that grow in this area of Sandfields and nearby Baglan.

It isn’t perfect. (No building is) The exterior of the school is faced with a variety of different materials, and the main building of YBB is no exception. There are areas of the school where the exterior walls are faced with some expanses of grey bricks. Well, if you’ve been with me for any real length of time, you’ll know how much I hate grey brick. Brick is a wonderful building material, but I think that grey brick is the worst possible way of using it. You might say, ah yes, but look at the carefully chosen colour scheme of the buildings – grey fits better. Well that’s your opinion, and you’re entitled to it – you may well be right. But I hate grey brick, I’m sorry to say.

Well, that’s YBB, and it’s a building which has won architectural awards, I think I should point out. Literally the other side of Seaway Parade we have the slightly newer Ysgol Bro Dur. 

Although the design of Ysgol Bro Dur is different from YBB, I think you’d be able to tell that it’s a contemporary of YBB. Unlike YBB, where I teach, I haven’t ever been up close and personal to Ysgol Bro Dur. In case you’re wondering why two such large schools have been built so close together, I should say that Ysgol Bro Dur provides education through the medium of the Welsh Language. The council has been committed to providing this in this part of the Borough, and the location makes sense as it’s accessible from Neath, Baglan, Sandfields, the Town Centre etc. What I will say is that, from the roadway at least, it does appear to be just a little more rectangular, a little more conventional than YBB. However, on the other hand, although there are places where the grey bricks are very much to the fore, there are also parts of the school built in brick-coloured bricks as well, so what you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts.

Knowing YBB so well, and Bro Dur so little it’s unfair to pick a favourite. Still, I do think that both schools are worth looking at, and may, just may, be showing us the defining style of schools for the first half of the 21^st century.

Finally, let’s look at a development which has happened by Aberavon Beach. When I first arrived in Port Talbot in 1986, the largest building on the sea front was probably this one, the Afan Lido, and it looked like this:-

The Lido boasted typical Leisure Centre facilities, but most notably, an Olympic Sized swimming pool. Over the years the exterior became more funky and interesting when water slides were installed which snaked their way outside and then back inside. In 2009 the building was gutted by fire. Originally there was talk of repairing it, but the damage was too extensive and demolition began in 2011. There was some talk of building something as large and extensive in its place. Eventually though, the Council were able to open this, the new Leisure and Fitness Centre, in early 2016.

Now, I’m only interested in the look of these buildings – how they contribute to the face and image that our town presents to the world. I’m not trying to comment on how the facilities compare with the old Lido – I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Leisure, I’m all for but fitness? Nah, not so much. And I have to say, you can feel free to disagree if you like, but I like this building and I think it’s better than what was there before. Okay, so everything below the roof is the sort of thing you can see in retail parks across the length and breadth of the land. But look at the roof. It’s been designed, I think, to represent a wave, and that’s what transforms this building from something bland that you don’t mind, to something a little bit distinctive that you can actually like.