Service Ravine

I pass through this architect-designed ravine every morning on my way to work (not this morning, though: we're on strike!).  It's a brick-paved service thoroughfare that squeezes between the grand wood-clad cliff of the new Life Sciences building and the anonymous barn of the R.J. Mitchell Wind Tunnel.  For me, it's a nowhere place of significance, as 20 years ago it was the site of the University Day Nursery, which both of my children attended.

What I particularly like about it now, from a photographic point-of-view, is the way reflections bounce around inside it, enlivening some of the dullest utilitarian architecture to be found anywhere.

Mind you, for all its retail-barn appearance, the Mitchell Wind Tunnel is something of a national secret weapon -- the vans of the [cough] British Cycling Team [cough] were often to be seen parked outside during the run-up to the Olympics.  R.J. Mitchell was, of course, the designer of the Supermarine Spitfire.