west offices

City of York Council offices, station rise, york, 2012

An artwork in two parts: an internal glass screen separating the customer services area and private offices, and small circular glass roundels acting as manifestation lines on the main doors.

The City of York Council moved offices in 2012 – to a great building on the site of the original ‘old’ railway station, just inside the city walls and across from the current ‘new’ station. The stunning West Offices development was a renovation of the original station buildings. The artworks are inspired by beautiful old maps of the area, referencing the history of the site.

To create the screen design, hand drawn tracings were made from contemporary and historic OS maps of York. All information within the map is discarded and only the buildings are traced, turning the city into a lace-like pattern.

Three overlapped tracings, at differing scales, when turned into mirror and frosted glass layers make the task of navigating the city into an intriguing puzzle.

The commission also included manifestations for the glass doors at the entrance, making the glass doors visible and so stopping visitors from walking directly into the glass. In addition to using OS maps as inspiration, the manifestations design work was based round infographics of the city’s infrastructure.