Who We Are.
Administrator.
James Newman - Site admin and London editor
City Editors.
Jonathan Smith - Associate editor
Neil Woodhouse - Birmingham editor
Chris Wilkinson - Manchester editor
Rob Stubbs - Leeds editor
Steve Quinn - Liverpool editor
John Glenday - Scotland editor
Andrew Shaw - Tyne and Wales editor
Website.
Jay Kerensky - Web designer and developer.
ADNC.net - Webhosting at the AIS data centre, San Diego.
Other People.
A big thanks also goes out to every other contributor there is,
all the people who are crawling the cities of the U.K taking pics
for us and various other contributions.
We'd also like to mention all the firms out there who keep us
informed about their projects and give us that extra little edge.
Most of all though, towers of gratitude go out to John Parkin
who spent years visiting planning departments throughout the land
getting information on the buildings that is the very basis of
what this database is built on.
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What we do.
The basic aim of skyscrapernews is to inform and educate people
about British architecture at both a serious and slightly more
irreverent level. Public participation in planning and the built
environment is only possible if the public have the information
and it's the aim of this site to get that information out.
We are also committed to recording the existence of every highrise
structure in the U.K no matter what it's use and photographing
this in our database, providing more information than anywhere
else before anywhere else.
Longer term aims include all churches ruined or still standing,
wind turbines, bridges, chimneys to provide not only a resource
about modern architecture but a record of how the built environment
has changed over the long history of the U.K. Afterall churches
were the skyscrapers of the middle ages, factory chimneys the
towers of the industrial revolution, and wind turbines will be
the future skyline of the British countryside.
Site History.
2000. Pete Kelly founds skyscrapernews.co.uk, a basic
rundown of skyscraper related news culled from magazines and newspapers
in the U.K as interest starts to rise in construction of new towers
in London. The statistics on the site go on to form the basis
of the British section of Emporis.
2001. James Newman joins the site alongside Pete as it
moves into a more magazine based format such as getting it's first
of many exclusives. The U.K skyscraper forums are founded by the
Dutch Highrise Foundation and James takes over their management
shutting down the guest book and sending all its posters there.
2002. PHP based image archive is launched featuring hundreds
of London buildings. The site is redesigned with a more colourful
look and starts taking more extensive look at what's going on.
Pete sadly leaves unable to maintain his contribution to both
the site and university work. The BBC starts to use our statistics
and the press conduct regular interviews with James. Images from
the visions section start to feature in the international press.
Skyscrapernews.com provides information to House of Commons select
committees.
2003. The site continues to grow. The news archive passes
the 250,000 word level and it becomes obvious that a solution
has to be reached to make all this information more accessible
and searchable. Outline planning starts on a new dynamic site.
We change domain names to skyscrapernews.com and work on solidifying
the current position.
2004. The UK skyscraper forum becomes the biggest local
architecture forum on the whole internet and skyscrapernews.com
becomes the most visited local architecture site on the internet.
The client list rockets without the site even being commercial
as visitor figures more than double in the space of 12 months
despite a change in domain name. Work starts on the site overhaul
and goes wildly out of time scale as plans become ever more elaborate.
A site editorial team of experts and informed hobbyists is recruited
to cover all the major cities in the U.K and work starts on data
entry.
2005. We are five. The new site finally launches.
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