Renaissance in Birmingham: Eastside (part two)
Taken from the book Revival in the Square, by Nick Corbett
Nick is Urban Design Manager at Derby Cityscape
For part one, or for the pdf of the full version, please click here
Following the successful development of Birmingham’s new quarters in the west side of the city centre, the city council produced a new urban design framework to develop the ‘Eastside’ in a way that builds on the City Centre Design Strategy.
This required another break in the raised inner ring road, which has now been transformed into a ground-level boulevard that provides pedestrian access to the new quarters in the east. The new eastern quarters are focused on an area occupied by the University of Aston, the historic but neglected Digbeth area, and large expanses of surface car parks, cement works, and waste-transfer stations.
The regeneration themes for the new quarters in Eastside are based upon learning, cultural heritage, technology, and state-of-the-art retailing. Birmingham City Council has again worked in partnership with the private sector to develop these areas. The council is one of the main landowners in the area, but it has also used its compulsory purchase powers to create development sites. Various consortia of private investors and developers formed to develop these packaged sites. The city council is now striving to make Eastside an example of how to create an urban renaissance in a way that reflects current urban design thinking (as discussed in the report of the Urban Task Force, chaired by Lord Rogers).
Birmingham’s Eastside prior to redevelopment – dominated by flyovers and car parks (courtesy of Birmingham City Council)
The urban design framework is proposed to unfold with new quarters that contain developments around new public squares, interconnected streets, and a major new city park. Existing traffic nodes, which stand close to the boundary of the city’s core area and Eastside, have been transformed into new city squares at ground level to create impressive pedestrian gateways into Eastside.
New interconnected squares, public spaces, vistas, and malls have been created in the flagship Bullring redevelopment. This has replaced a 1960s shopping centre to the east of the city centre that stood upon an island site, surrounded by several lanes of traffic. Pedestrians could only reach the old Bullring centre through a maze of forbidding subways. Shopping streets within the city centre, which provide access to the Bullring area, were pedestrianised in earlier enhancement schemes, and more recently the road junctions approaching the Bullring were transformed by removal of subways, widening of pavements, and provision of ground-level pedestrian crossings. The key difference between the old 1960s Bullring shopping centre and the site as redeveloped is that it now includes public spaces that are interconnected with the preexisting pedestrian routes, and views of existing and new landmarks have been opened up – the Bullring has been made a legible part of the city centre.
Birmingham’s Eastside area after removal of the flyovers. New ground-level boulevards are being created
The new department store by architects Future Systems, which is covered in 15,000 spun-aluminium discs, is a brash and dramatic new landmark within the Bullring redevelopment. The new landmark building is no bigger in scale than other new buildings in the redevelopment, but a jelly-mould shape and startling materials make it very distinctive. The building has served as a positive marketing tool for the city, but has resulted in some problems at street level, especially where it presents blind walls to the pavement.
The city council provided the vision for the new Bullring to fully exploit the potential of existing landmarks – these being the modern icon building of the Rotunda and the parish church of Saint Martin’s. The visual impact of these buildings has been maximised by creating a new square around Saint Martin’s church and by providing a new wide street that connects from this square to the Rotunda. The Rotunda stands upon the main shopping area of New Street, and a new public space has been created at its base. A new bronze sculpture of a bull, symbolising the cattle market that gave the area its name, has been included in this space.
The Rotunda stands on ground that is significantly higher than the ground level around Saint Martin’s church. As such, if you stand on the new public space at the base of the Rotunda and look down the new axial route to Saint Martin’s church, the view of the church and the city beyond is dramatic. This view existed in the historic street layout that was destroyed in the 1960s to make way for the modernist Bullring. Today, in the new development, the open view between the spire of Saint Martin’s church and the Rotunda is all the more powerful as the two landmarks appear to be in conversation with each other (which is reminiscent of the way that Nelson’s Column in London’s Trafalgar Square is visually aligned with the route of Whitehall to connect with Big Ben at the Palace of Westminster).
Along the axial line that connects the landmarks of Saint Martin’s church and the Rotunda, a historic sculpture of Lord Nelson has been given pride of place. The sculpture had been largely ignored for years because no appropriate location could be found for it. The statue was originally erected by public subscription by Birmingham’s citizens in the 19th century, prior to the erection of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square. Not only does the statue connect present citizens with the values of the city’s past inhabitants, but it also connects them with a major event in the history of their nation.
The landmark of Saint Martin’s church has been renovated as part of the new Bullring and two sides of the church are on prime view from its new square. The church has fully engaged with its adventurous new surroundings. It has an ‘open door’ policy, with community events, historic information, and a popular jazz cafe. It is now regularly teaming with a broad cross section of Birmingham’s citizens and visitors. In a sense, the parish church appears to have been elevated to cathedral status.
The viewing terrace at the new Selfridges store Saint Martin’s church in the foreground and the new Selfridges department store by architects Future Systems in the background (courtesy of Jonathan Berg/bplphoto.co.uk)
The Bullring development was realised through a public–private partnership. The three private companies that came together to form the Birmingham Alliance were Henderson Global Investments and the property companies Hammerson and Land Securities Group. The partners all held land in various parts of the city, but by working in partnership they were able to combine their land, finance, and professional resources with the council’s vision and accountability to local citizens.
On the down-side, the 110,000 m2 (1.2 million sq.ft) of new floor space within the Bullring centre is overwhelmingly for retail use. The lack of mixed use, especially any residential use, and the semi-private nature of the three new shopping malls that surround the new public spaces, have led to criticism that the area will not perform as a proper urban quarter with its own community, and that the striking buildings will soon look out of date. The result could be that the whole area needs to be redeveloped again in thirty years’ time – which is hardly sustainable development.
It can, however, also be argued that it is the new public spaces, the physical connectivity, the views, and the public art that have provided the new development with an enduring quality, something that the 1960s Bullring never had. They help to root the new development and give the city of Birmingham a confidence in its identity. The Bullring is now physically connected to the existing retail core and to the series of interconnected public spaces in the western part of the city centre. By connecting with existing high pedestrian flows, new opportunities for growth to spread eastwards have been created.
The reinstated statue of Nelson, with the new Selfridges department store in the background
Independent forecasts have shown that the opening of the Bullring should push Birmingham up to second place in the UK’s national ranking of retail destinations, and that the development represents a 40 per cent increase in Birmingham city centre’s retail offer. In its first months of opening, over one million people visited the Bullring every week, and visitor numbers are reported to be up in other stores across the eastern part of the city centre. It appears that the new development has helped Birmingham to capture shoppers from neighbouring provincial cities and from London. Only time will tell whether the new retail offer can be sustained without detriment to existing commercial streets within the core area of the city centre.
Developing a truly mixed-use quarter with a variety of uses around new public spaces still appears to be an elusive dream for Birmingham’s city centre. This may only be achieved when the city council realises the longer-term community benefits that arise from self-policing mixed-use communities, and when property funding and management companies have to assess whole-life costs of development schemes. The organisational structure, policy, and operational management of both the public and private sector will need to be adapted to accommodate this. Perhaps this could be the next breakthrough for a public–private sector partnership in Birmingham.
The upper level of the old Bullring space
New interconnected squares, public spaces, vistas, and malls have been created in the flagship Bullring redevelopment. This has replaced a 1960s shopping centre to the east of the city centre that stood upon an island site, surrounded by several lanes of traffic. Pedestrians could only reach the old Bullring centre through a maze of forbidding subways
The upper level of the new Bullring square
Influencing the wider region
The success of Birmingham’s City Centre Design Strategy has drawn many new visitors to the city. As well as the new residents, shoppers, tourists, and business people attracted to Birmingham, urban designers, planners, architects, and civic leaders have also visited to see how change has been planned and delivered. A new regional development agency, Advantage West Midlands, is now promoting Birmingham as a model for urban renaissance across the West Midlands region. New networking opportunities are also being provided, to share experience and ideas on best practice in urban design and regeneration. Neighbouring local authorities have been keen to share in the success that has been generated by Birmingham’s improved city centre. Coventry and Walsall provide two examples.
Public space at the base of the Rotunda, after improvements
Coventry by Design
Coventry has a population of over 300,000 people and is located less than 25 miles to the south-east of central Birmingham. Although Coventry’ origins are more ancient than those of Birmingham, and it survived as a town of national architectural and historic importance into the 1930s, it shares a similar industrial history, much of it focused on car production.
As with Birmingham, Coventry was heavily bombed in the Second World War. It was also subject to post-war redevelopment that destroyed the city’s medieval grid pattern to facilitate vehicular accessibility. Coventry was given an inner ring road in the 1960s, which has also served as a concrete collar, segregating various quarters and restricting pedestrian movement. Although 350 buildings dating from before the 17th century survived the war, only 34 remained by 1966.
In January 1999, Coventry City Council commissioned consultants to create their own urban design strategy, Coventry by Design, which was produced by the London-based consultants Urban Initiatives. The urban design strategy shows how a distinctive city centre could be recreated. It defines character areas, where there are surviving homogeneous features, and suggests how they could be developed into distinct quarters, in a similar fashion to Birmingham’s City Centre Design Strategy. Coventry by Design shows how pedestrian desire lines and public-transport interchanges could be accommodated, and how breaking the inner ring road could improve pedestrian movement patterns. As with Birmingham’s City Centre Design Strategy, its main focus is the creation of a more-legible built environment through the establishment of well-designed public spaces.
The Phoenix Initiative is a city-led partnership that has delivered much of the vision for a better city centre. It has resulted in the creation of new public spaces along a route that connects the cathedral with the transport museum. These are the two dynamic institutions that help to define the special character of Coventry. An improved public realm and a strategic approach to public art are defining features along the Phoenix Trail.
Walsall’s strategy
Walsall is a town that forms part of the West Midlands urban conurbation and is located less than ten miles to the north of Birmingham’s city centre. Walsall’s design strategy has included linking new and improved public spaces with pedestrianised streets. A major new art gallery has been built within an enhanced quarter based around a canal wharf. An ancient market, which dates back to 1212, has been refurbished, and a dramatic modern bus station set within a new square creates an impressive sense of arrival for those arriving by public transport.
The centrepiece of the strategy is a recently built new town square, located at the heart of the town centre at a major junction that was previously dominated by traffic congestion. The square provides a physical link between all of the major regeneration proposals within their strategy, including the refurbished market, high street, and the new art gallery. A national competition was held for designs for the new square, which was won by the Midlands-based practice Eachus Huckson Landscape Architects.
The new public space at the cathedral close – it has been cleared of traffic and is the beginning of a sequence of public spaces that form Coventry’s Phoenix Trail
. The ‘Whittle arch’ in Coventry flys over a hidden river and leads the eye to the Phoenix Trail. The sculpture has been shortlisted for the prestigious Stirling prize
Public art is a major feature of Walsall’s new town square and other regenerated public spaces. The artist Tom Lomax, who produced works of art in Birmingham’s Victoria Square, was commissioned to produce new works of art that reflect Walsall’s various wealth-generating trades.
Conclusion
The urban design strategies developed for Walsall and Coventry are in part a testimony to the success of Birmingham’s City Centre Design Strategy. They show how model projects developed in a regional capital can serve as a beacon for success. Birmingham’s strategic approach to urban improvements, and the quality of its new public spaces, has served as a model for other initiatives across the region, which all build up momentum for an urban renaissance.
Birmingham is now recognised by the UK Government as being an ‘emerging world city’ and its urban improvements are being officially championed at 25 designated urban growth centres across the West Midlands region. A key challenge for Birmingham and other urban areas is how to apply the best practice developed in creating public space in the city centre to the suburban centres and ordinary streets and spaces that make up the modern city.
Walsall’s new public square serves as a focal point to the town centre (courtesy of Walsall MBC)
Summary points
- Birmingham’s urban design strategy provided the vision required to strengthen the character of urban quarters, and the land values within them, through creating prestigious new squares that would become major destination points.
- Birmingham’s urban design strategy provided the vision for sequences of interconnected squares and pedestrianised streets that would bring people from the centre into the urban quarters, thereby extending the city-centre activity and providing new investment opportunities, not just for office, conference, and entertainment uses, but also for citycentre housing.
- Having strong and enduring support for Birmingham’s urban design strategy from a local political leader provided the degree of certainty required for private-sector investors and public-sector decision makers to act in a joined-up way for over a two decade time span
- The improvements to the network of public space within Birmingham’s city centre have helped to transform the image and economic performance of the whole city, and have served as a beacon for the regeneration of other urban centres across the West Midlands region.
- It remains to be seen if Birmingham’s city centre can attract enough people to sustain the centre and the new quarters, or if pedestrian flows will be sufficient to create lively public spaces in areas such as the far side of the Eastside without accompanying investment in a better public transport network.
- Creation of a mixture of uses (including residential) in the buildings that enclose new public squares has not yet been achieved in Birmingham.
- A challenge remains to apply the best practice gleaned from improving public space in Birmingham’s city centre to its suburban centres and to the vast number of streets and spaces that form Europe’s largest local authority area.
Walsall’s new art gallery (courtesy of Walsall MBC)
