Bull Ring Communication Interchange

City of work

As regeneration in Birmingham continues to tear the heart out of the fabric of the city, the gaps created are being filled just as swiftly with places aimed only at furthering the pursuit of leisure. Birmingham is becoming a city for relaxing; the urban experience reduced to lounging around in bars and cafes.

Rethinking the urban

"This is city living as an endless succession of free fun - all places to go people to see for those with nothing better to do than walk and look. The democratic promise in the figure of the flaneur, the implication that we can all do this if only we have a free minute, is, admittedly, hard to resist...

Of course, the fantasy that we will all flaneur into a new way of being...must forget about everything in the city that people have to do. This is a way of inhabitting public spaces without the call of work, family or duty. To enjoy it best, you should be alone, with time to kill and access to some private source of funding, because cities are most fun as places of aimless leisure. I appreciate th very significant pleasures of the city as spectacle that costs nothing to see, enjoy the endless show of urban living as much as the next person. There is, though, something rather strange about imagining the convivial city as no more than a place in which to hang about...

It seems that cities can only become fun and convivial places if work happens elsewhere. For Birmingham, and other hungry-for-jobs British cities, the trick is to provide employment that looks like leisure. As if working in the service sector is being paid to be yourself."

Urban Space and Representation 'Metropolis of the Midlands', Gargi Bhattacharyya

The document that guides this regeneration is the Unitary Development Plan. I propose to use some of its contents as an inspiration for my thesis project, partly through the adoption of it's plans for change, but also by further questioning the value of the current process of demolition occuring at the Bull Ring Centre. The work presented in year 5 suggested a process of adaptation instead of complete removal, this stance seems reinforced by the conflicting nature of the UDP's plans fo the city:

Birmingham City Centre

"2.23 The City Centre must...be encouraged to develop and prosper, building on it's strengths and by urgently addressing it's weaknesses. 2.24 There is a need to exploit the City Centre's strengths by:-

- Building upon the massive historical capital investment.

- Exploiting the City's location at the hub of national communication systems.

Conservation of the Built Environment

3.20 The historic legacy of Birmingham is considered to be of prime importance, especially as so much was demolished during the redevelopment of the 50s and 60s. Designated Conservation Areas within the City will continue to provide a powerful means of preserving the best of our historic and architectural heritage..."

The following statements are examples of plans I intend to investigate further:

Future Prospects

"4.6 ...the City's proseperity, and hence its ability to provide employment, depends in large measure upon its ability to attract inward investment and to 'export' its goods and services (whether to other countries or other parts of the UK)...

4.6 The Economic Strategy therefore gives a high priority to those industries which export a substantial proportion of their output. By and large this means manufacturing industry and those services which bring revenue from outside - such as tourism, professional and financial sevices, higher education and, increasingly, the potential of knowledge based industries."

Birmingham Unitary Development Plan, April 2000

The shifting boundaries of work places and work ethics made possible by the globalisation of information structures (e.g. I'm writing this on the Metro line between Wolverhampton and Birmingham, having just sent an e- mail and pausing to receive and reply to a text message from a friends mobile phone) and the destruction of place as an operative or affective medium is a one sided discussion that ignores the act of production. The benefits of a non-place existence are felt only by those whose work involves the manipulation of the information field that runs through space/time as a constant between nodes of connectivity. Does this information or knowledge immediacy effect the act of production? Does the erosion of location increase or decrease our perception of physical value and relationship with consumption? (or, why has 'Costa Coffee' become so popular?)

The site for this project is the stretch of land between New Street station and Moor Street station. The choice is partly informed by the desire to complete a body of work that makes suggestions for alternatives for the whole Bull Ring area (alongside projects from yr 5), but largely because it is the natural point of collision for a communications hub.

From the existing pedestrian route that connects the two stations, to the relocation of the bus depot, reduction of bus traffic in the pedestrianised centre, new possibilities for extended Metro routes, overcrowded station taxi ranks, easy vehicular link to the ring road and M6, through to the supporting international train connection - the site is primed to become the pulsating heart of transport in & out of the city. The substantial site area and linear nature perhaps even deserves a runway for aircraft; or at the very least, a fleet of airships...

Besides the transport of people, the facility for work, production and export - the intended vehicle of regeneration for this project - is possible within the same infrastructure. If the primary statement of the thesis is a comment on the value of the existing urban fabric (both economically and philosophically), the layers or strata of history are an already located part of the new program. The long history of market stalls and the movement of food in & out of the city at Moor Street station are inherited with the physical fabric.

Bull Ring communication hub - public transport interchange and product* export service to the nation/world(?)

*object, knowledge or both?

Can the production, consumption and transport of food provide a new form of economic regeneration in the city? How can the re-packaging of the existing fabric and memories be infused with the sense of progress and dynamism so eagerly sought for by our post-millenial spirit?