Bradley Garrett after reaching the dizzying pinacle of the Shard; via placehacking.co.uk
Very few people have taken in the magnificent view at the top of the Shard, the modern new tower that will be the tallest in Western Europe when it is finished in about a month’s time. But last February, and in the dead of night, PhD graduate Bradley Garrett got together with two friends from London’s urban exploration community to trespass the building and “place hack” it. After Garrett uploaded some of the vertigo-inducing photos of the city below to his blog over the weekend, the interest was so great that placehacking.co.uk stopped loading because of the deluge of traffic.
“It’s so iconic. That’s why we wanted to climb it,” Garrett, 31, said in an interview with Forbes today. “You look at it and you think, ‘This is the tallest building in Europe and we don’t know if we can get away with it.’”
The place hackers didn’t so much break into building with a crowbar as wait for the right moment to practically walk in. According to Garrett’s blog, they entered the site at around 2am from a temporary wooden walkway near London Bridge train station. From the base they could peer up at the soaring building that would eventually look like a narrow pyramid, its tip jabbing into the stars above. When the walkway was clear of people, and a single security guard had gone into his hut, the team grabbed onto some scaffolding pipes and swung off the bridge, then on top of another walkway. They lay down and out of sight for a while, before descending down some more scaffolding, and behind the security hut where they guard was now watching TV.
On a builder’s crane, perched on top of the Shard; via placehackers.co.uk
Garrett and his two friends ran across the yard to find the building’s central cement stair case, and started their long climb to the top. At first they were enthusiastic taking two stairs at a time, but after the 31st floor, Garrett was sweating heavily and well aware that the sweat would sting when they came out onto the roof. From there on they took the stairs at a more steady pace. As they neared the top the the men found the cement stairs had turned into metal ones, and then wooden ladders. At 76 stories they threw open a final hatch and found themselves at the top of the building, already with an incredible view but one remaining step: a tall builder’s crane that was jutting into the sky.
Holding his nerve, Garrett climbed the counterweight of the crane. “We were so high, I couldn’t see anything moving at street level,” he said. “No buses, no cars, just rows of lights and train lines that looked like converging river systems, a giant urban circuit board.” One of the men who Garrett only names as “Gary,” even sat inside the cab of the builders’ crane and pretended press a button, exclaiming “Watch this, I’m going to build the Shard!”
Though it was a thrilling experience, Garrett told Forbes that others from group of place hackers he was working with, known as the London Consolidation Crew, had already gone up the Shard about “half a dozen times” in the “entire span of 2011.” They had decided to release the photos from their February climb because it had been a cold, crisp night that made for better picture-taking conditions, and this weekend because the Shard was due to be completed in June.
Does he worry about getting in trouble with the authorities? “I’ve been caught,” Garrett admits. “I’ve done 300 locations in eight countries in the past three years and been caught twice.” But punishments are tame. When guards realize that place hackers are more interested taking photos than spraying graffiti or stealing copper, they simply ask them to leave. If the cops are called in, they tend to get more irritated with a guard for not doing his job properly, Garrett adds. The hope is that in being so transparent about his research and identity, he won’t risk getting riling up the authorities.
The Shard; via placehackers.co.uk
Garrett got involved in place hacking via his PhD, which involved three years of intense research and finished last February. He based his thesis on studying the London Consolidation Crew, a group that explores hidden parts of the city such as the 32 “ghost” stations in London’s subway system or the vast tunnels in London’s 19th century sewage system. “It’s utterly beautiful,” Garrett says of the sewers. “The Victorians used to visit them and we’ve lost that.”
Garrett, who currently supports himself through freelance writing and filmmaking, went from being an observer to a participant in urban exploration in order to better write his PhD, which was funded by private donors. He found a range of motivations among the people involved in the pursuit of what he describes as “urban excavation.”
Article source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2012/04/09/meet-the-place-hacker-who-trespassed-and-scaled-europes-tallest-building/?feed=rss_home
View full post on National Cyber Security » Computer Hacking