The amazing transformation of New Street Station

Arriving in July 2015 and standing before a huge eye looking out over the cityscape, resembling one of H.G. Well’s fighting machines from ‘The War of the Worlds’, the eye a glazed screen set in a huge polished stainless steel ribbon, that gives the most amazing abstract reflections of the city, from the trains passing below to people moving along a new thoroughfare that threads between the hole in the city fabric that surrounds tracks and platforms and the back of the Odeon Cinema, it is a very busy thoroughfare with a green wall on the right side, where clipped vegetation in a raised planter that forms a continuous bench, creates an edge along what is essentially a huge blank brick wall turning its back on the life of the city, on the left a glass wall, giving a clear view of the constant flow of trains arriving and departing at what is the UK’s busiest station outside of London.

Beyond, the high concrete wall that for so long has divorced the station from the life of the city. Following the green wall beneath the steel ribbon and straight onto Stephenson Place! Such a seemingly insignificant addition to the city’s fabric, is having a major impact, probably reducing the walk from Moor Street to New Street by 5 minutes, which in the morning rush is a major advantage. Stephenson Place, below the steel ribbon is abuzz with construction activity, like Corporation Street, tram lines are being laid in the street surface in a move the will finally provide the transit link between Snow Hill and New Street in the first phase of the extension to the Midland Metro, joining up arrival at New Street with a quick and convenient link to Birmingham’s financial district.

Walking off Stephenson Place and straight onto the concourse of New Street Station, no more fighting your way along the McDonalds ramp and through the Pallasades shopping centre, situated where the lower car park used to be, this is without a doubt a very smart move, finally reconnecting what should be the centre of the city with the life of the city. 

The walk along the concourse feels a bit like some of the newer underground stations in London at this stage, as the atrium is still under wraps, rapidly nearing completion. High quality finishes, increased ceiling height, make a huge difference to the dispersal bridge that previously provided the route between the shopping centre above and the trains below. No longer an artificially lit corridor, even as work is still in progress this is a huge improvement, daylight at the far end signals the arrival onto the corner of Hill Street and Station Street, gone is the taxi route of Queens Drive and the sunken pit of the parcels depot and Stephenson Tower on its spindly columns above a dark undercroft, and steps lead out into the brightness of the city. No longer is Hill Street a one sided street, its life reflected back on the continuous steel ribbon, above the ribbon a curving frosted glass volume, probably five storeys high, bearing the name John Lewis, a fitting counterpoint to Future Systems’ Selfridges at the far end of the Bull Ring.

The ribbon, reflects the sky and the life of the city in what seems to be a constantly moving abstract sculpture, creating a bright centre of the city, and more importantly, the activities below and beneath the surface treatment of the waving façade, have been reconnected with the life of the city. From a theoretical point of view some of the reorganization of the activities may seem quite simple, substitute a car park for concourse, open up entrances onto the street, create a new bridge alongside the pit, but to do this on an operational station that is handling 35 million passengers a year (The Guardian 22 July 2015) is nothing short of amazing. As streetscape, this is a huge volume, and as a object in the centre of the city, indeed it is the centre of the city and the solution of wrapping a huge reflective ribbon around it is nothing short of genius, where the concrete structure beneath sucked life out of the city, now the vista looking along any street leading to the station is met with brightness, even on a dull day, it is unmistakable from anywhere that New Street Station and its partner, Grand Central, the retail concourse above, has established itself as a destination in its own right.

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The Tide of Change

Written from the perspective of arriving to Birmingham in 1993 and discovering the layers that make up the city, subsequently many more layers have been applied in the constant tide of change, and now with the opening of the new Birmingham New Street station following its epic reorganisation, this piece gives a brief insight into the urban journey.

On the sixth floor of the Central Library, is the map section, containing Historic maps of Birmingham in plan chests that do not show Spaghetti Junction, or the areas surrounding it. The earliest is dated 1732 and shows St Martins, surrounded by small buildings and sure enough the Shambles as the mural in the Bull Ring depicts. On the map Birmingham is a market town, English Market, Welsh Market, Beast Market. The greatest landmark is the manor house protected by a moat that the local histories cite as the residence, the seat of power of the landowners the de Berminghams, dating back to the Tenth Century. Later maps show the inundation of industry and workers housing, small outdoor markets, replaced by Market Hall. Then slum clearance at the railway company’s expense, a significant area of town disappears from the map to make way for New Street Station, Peck Lane and the Froggary, along with three churches and a synagogue disappeared from the city map, as the site was lowered by 25ft in 1850. In a sense, urban devastation in the name of the public good, stories tell of the public exerting pressure on the railway companies, complaining that the existing station at Curzon Street was too far out of the city centre.

During construction the project was referred to as “Grand Central station at Birmingham” in ‘the Builder’ on 25th January 1853; reporting on the erection of vast 25 Ton ribs, 45 of which make up the roof.

In addition new civic buildings were erected exuding the wealth of the city, such as the hotel that was being erected on the site by the London and North Western Railway. The hotel became the Queens Hotel when it opened on 1st June 1854, along with the station becoming New Street Station, although not actually on New Street, I suppose the name ‘New Street’ sounds more glamorous than ‘Peck Lane’, although what happened to the name ‘Grand Central Station’ went, is unknown. There are other significant events that have changed the map, from the enlargement of the station during the 1870's, to the events of World War II taking their toll on the station as the grand iron roof sustained numerous direct hits, along with the neighbouring market hall, and finally the Manzoni Plan that has resulted in the city as it stands today. On the ground, traces remain of the market town shown on the maps, the blackened edifice that is St Martins hidden among the ring road, shopping centre and numerous car parks. Four lanes of traffic now circulate on Moat Lane where the historic maps show the moat to the manor house. The site of the manor house itself is now hidden beneath the vast concrete framed enclosure of the Wholesale market. Along Digbeth High Street, car dealerships dominate the street scene, car parks, billboards, filling in the spaces between the more significant buildings: Police Station, Coach Station, Irish Centre…Away from the high street, the dark brick arches of Bordesley viaduct dominate the street scene, now detached from the railway and marooned above the rooftops.

To be continued...

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Reflections on Dubai

Dubai is an interesting one in the context of the journey, at the beginning of the journey I had no idea where Dubai was, it did feature on the BBC Television Series, Around the World in 80 Days with Michael Palin, but never registered as a place to visit, it was simply a port in the Persian Gulf on the wrong side of the Strait of Hormuz. 20 years later it is a different story, many colleagues are telling stories about working on the city growing out of the desert. Flights heading towards Asia from the UK, often involved making connecting flights in Dubai, and passing through the airport, and seeing so many nationalities, it really does feel like a global hub. The glossy promotional videos onboard Emirates flights give an impression of paradise, with clear blue skies, deep azure seas, deep orange sunsets over the dunes and the glittering towers in a New York on steroids scenario. 

By 2008, my company at the time Aedas, was immersed in the design of the Dubai Metro, the conic shells for the stations being developed in the London Studio, the depots at Jebel Ali and Rashidiya being handled by a team in Birmingham, both backed up by a huge team in Dubai, and teams in Hong Kong and Singapore, a truly collaborative process, although not without its challenges and as often in the harsh reality of project delivery was far from glamourous for those involved. The city as a place to relocate to, has represented something of a mirage in the sand, the financial crisis of 2008 put a stop to the expat 'gold rush', the city went bankrupt having to be bailed out by Abu Dhabi and many projects stopped. In 2010 the situation in the UK caused by the halt to public spending following a change of government, the need to consider relocating abroad became a very real one, but Dubai was already a closed shop, and in subsequent years visits have always been fleeting but reveal something of a completely different city to the one in the glossy images and videos. The city on the ground being one of highways, dust, haze and major works incomplete, or still in progress, towers standing empty and the gloss contained within huge shopping malls. 

In the past 5 years the city has been one that has been consistently of interest, from analysing the planning strategies that has resulted in the disjointed artificial environments, to the implementation of the Metro in an attempt to link all of these realities together, and the ongoing retro fitting of infrastructure to an existing situation. On planning projects telling clients that they are looking at developing projects equated to the 'size of Dubai' seems to be the only way that they understand the scale of what they are undertaking. As a subject, Dubai is a great learning experience for all of us, from uncontrolled growth and the notion that you can build anything you want based on money that does not actually exist, to the city learning itself, whether working in the city or following its growth from a distance it is surely one worth watching.

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I Dream in SketchUp...

During the course of 25 years of working in the field of architecture, changes to the way we practice have changed little, that is in terms of the big chunk of what we do being administration, coordination, talking to people to ensure that the project is moving in the right direction in essence, project management. The other side of it being the design side has changed significantly in terms of the tools that are available to us and those that we are expected to use. in 1987, the tools were 'Rotring' drawing pens, tracing paper, T square and drawing board, along the way there have been different tools that involve sitting in front of a computer and not drawing at all, in the traditional sense. It is still great to be able to draw on paper, although most of the 'Rotrings' have long since dried up, and drawing tends to be felt pen on detail paper these days, it is still a humbling experience to sit with a master and watch as amazing drawings emerge from the tip of their pen.

Over the years there are many tools that have been used in the virtual world of CAD, Minicad (known as Vectorworks these days) which in my experience was completely useless, Archicad which was brilliant, Autocad which was next to useless, and it was a complete surprise to me to find that this is considered the industry standard, Microstation which was better than Archicad, then moving practices and being back on Autocad which seemed at the time to be completely useless, then in 2005 came a free software that is like making card models in a virtual environment...SketchUp!, I have been using SketchUp! for 10 years now, and this is my first impression of using it in 2005.

Is this the tool that designers have been waiting for? I think it could very well be. I have no idea what was the best thing before sliced bread, or what it has to do with architecture, but this could be the best thing since. No longer is it a process of drawing up plans in AutoCAD then having someone take them into 3D Studio or one of the parametric plug-ins that are needed to make AutoCAD anything close to usable. Here it is possible to create computer models, intuitively working directly in perspective as though making the model physically.

Fantastic spaces, places emerge on the screen where previously it would take weeks of drawing, sketching and test models to visualize a space, and those times where a whole day can be spent setting up a perspective only to discover that the view is not telling the story that you want it to. Here finding the right view takes minutes if you know what you are doing, and assembling the elements to make the view meaningful can be done in real time. It is like moving in a different world, one of an interactive drawing that can be arranged and modified at will. It is hugely rewarding and at the same time hugely frustrating, as it is so easy to use it is also very easy to cock it up! Erase one line and half the model disappears.

It is great for explaining ideas to clients that are not technically minded, and even the technically minded ones can not all read plans, but walk them through a series of spaces they get a feel for what is being proposed and can give more useful feedback. It is also something of a double-edged sword in that it is easy to give the impression that everything can be done quickly, and Clients can become less understanding with regard to the time frame required to get things done.

The problem remains that most contractors cannot build from 3D views and animations, they still need flat 2D drawings printed to scale, which invariably means that everything still gets drawn in AutoCAD, with the advantage that design can be more thoroughly worked out before going to CAD.

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The Beaubourg Legacy

There are a few threads that define the journey that makes up the story that is told in Do We Need Architects, A Journey beneath the Surface of Architecture, and like the cities that were visited many times throughout the journey a few projects that are like DNA markers on the city. The markers define not exactly a building type, and not exactly a particular 'style' as the symplistic definition of architecture is based, but in the evolving process of the meeting of two minds and the development of a team around the exchange of ideas. The two minds: Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers and the team included the personalities of Mike Davies and Jan Kaplicky who is best known for his work under the name Future Systems, and thoughout the journey sometimes planned, sometimes chance encounters with some of the projects gives a very strong indication of design evolution. 

The journey in tracing the evolution began in the classroom, at college on the BTEC Building Studies course at South Devon College, probably around 1989, discussing building services and hearing about an exhibition centre in France that has all the services on the outside of the building to free up the rectangular volume for the events it was hosting. Later was the discussion about the notion of 'white elephant' and another about the relatively new and shiny Lloyds building in the City, (financial centre of London). On visiting London in the summer of 1989, and seeing the Lloyds building for real the journey of discovery had commenced although I did not recognise it at the time.

Years later, on a study visit to Paris, standing in the plaza of CNAC Georges Pompidou on the Beaubourg Plateau, discussing the project with my fellow students, a few things fell into place, firstly this was the 'exhibition centre' that was being discussed at college and somehow the description at the time did nothing to prepare me for actually experiencing it up close. The second thing that fell into place was the association with the name Richard Rogers, a name I did know from the Lloyds building, and the notion that the two projects were linked. There are many stories about the design and construction of both projects, that formed the basis of my dissertation on the Post Graduate Diploma in that resulted in RIBA Part 2 qualification in 1999, the main focus of the study was the design process, the team, the approach and legacy of such a dramatic project.

Throughout the years many projects have been completed by individuals who made up the Piano+Rogers team, some have been visited, experienced and examined from Centre Pompidou itself, to the Lloyds Building, The Millennium Dome, Birmingham's Selfridges, Heathrow Terminal 5, The Shard, the Leadenhall Building...that all give a sense of progression, evolution of a design process that is borne out of program not aesthetics, defines a language not a style, a process that is always learning, changing, adjusting to the human events, needs and environment that architecture has to respond to beneath the surface of what is viewed by the media and by extension the public. 

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Business as Usual is not an Option

This is a look at the big picture courtesy of Siemens: http://www.siemens.com/press/pool/de/events/2011/corporate/2011-10-sevenbillion/factsheet-7billion-e.pdf

Cities cover only one percent of the Earth’s surface but are home to more than half of humanity, consume 75 percent of the available energy and emit around 80 percent of all harmful greenhouse gases. The UN It is estimates that roughly 70 percent of the world’s population will live in urban centres by 2050 . In the current scenario, the world population of seven billion is projected to reach 9.3 billion by 2050, in which the population of cities will nearly be as large as the entire world population today. Today, humanity uses the equivalent of 1.5 planets to provide the resources we use and absorb our waste. In a business-as-usual scenario, the world’s demand for raw materials (metal ores, fossil fuels, biomass, non-metallic minerals) will more than double from 60 billion metric tons today to 140 billion tons in 2050. Also, energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions would double in such a scenario.

What can we as architects, urban designers, planners do about it? In terms of technical expertise, we know how to design buildings so that they are energy efficient, we know how places should be designed to respond best to the environment, we also know that joined up thinking regarding infrastructure and urban planning is a good starting point to achieving cities that consume less energy, manage resources and above all provide good quality environments to live, to work, to be educated, to enjoy...so why does this not happen? In existing cities, there are many smart city initiatives aimed at retro-fitting infrastructure, whether is is creating new major transport links, cycle networks, district heating/cooling networks and the use of technology to make us more aware of the facilities that are available to us. In creating new cities this should be easy, and in many cases it can be as long there is the will on the part of the project sponsor(s) to depart from 'business as usual' and invest in the elements of infrastructure that are usually perceived as expensive in the short term but provide significant savings in the long term, invest in the elements that developers do not see as financially viable that make the difference between a great urban new environment and just another development.

The problem on many projects is that the key decisions regarding budget and development potential have been made before designers get involved, and subsequently those intangible elements that are to do with creating a sense of place, are very often seen as a 'nice to have' but do not earn revenue for the developer so are discounted early on, or at least render the process a struggle to build in any quality or achieve an appropriate balance between infrastructure and commercial space.

Perhaps we collectively need to redefine the notion of value and quality based on criteria that is not derived from short-term financial gain. 

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Reflections on London

London has always been of interest to me for as long as I can remember, whether is is through seeing views of London on the television, in picture postcards brought back by friends who have visited, or the memorabilia that is associated with the nation's capital, the red Routemaster bus, the black cab or the Underground. London seems to be a city that has in a sense eluded me, in terms in a number circumstances I have tried to move to London to live and work, but for one reason or another has not happened to date.

Over the time span of 25 years there have been many opportunities to visit, and in a sense there is always something new, something exciting happening in the constant tide of change, that is transforming the city. Massive infrastructure projects that are far greater than London itself, when I first visited the capital for the purposes of the story in 1989, the Channel Tunnel did not yet exist, although it was work in progress, the first phase of Docklands Light Railway had only just opened, Heathrow Terminal 5 was still in the design stages if it existed as a concept at all, and who ever heard of Crossrail? Events that seemed a distant future concept from life in the deprived city of the late 1980's in Thatcher's Britain, the Millennium Celebrations, the 2012 Olympics have been and gone, facilitated by some pretty dramatic changes to the City, the Jubilee Line, Eurostar and much later HS1 that completed the link to Europe, the regeneration of the Docklands, the dramatic transformation of the Greenwich Peninsula and what became the Olympic Park in Stratford that are still driving regeneration of the East end of London.

Projects have been undertaken and delivered, each with their own story to tell, some more controversial than others: Waterloo International, The Millennium Dome, The Millennium Footbridge, The Olympic Stadium, St Pancras International, The Shard, The Emirates Air Line to name a few, that have each played their part in cementing London's position as a global capital, signifying the constant change and growth of a living city. Social, political and cultural forces generate the need for change, and countless professionals are involved in the delivery of a built product that the public interacts with, experiences and forms opinions about. There are probably countless professionals that will disagree with me but there is only one profession that can comprehend the social, political and cultural forces into a set of requirements that form the program for what is built and that profession is architecture.

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