I spent 4 days in the fabulous city of Helsinki in Finland earlier this month attending 2 events, Blender! and CEB (Creative Economy and Beyond). It also happened to be design week in Helsinki so there was some cool stuff happening.

My invite on the trip was thanks to BCU's invovlement with a project called 'Creative Metropoles: Public Policies and Instruments in Support of Creative Industries'. This project presents shared vision of 11 European cities on creative industries and creative economy. There was 4 from the West Midlands who traveled including myself, Steve Harding (head of BCU corporate development), Kerry Thomas (Fused Magazine) and Nina Lakeberg (BCU). (special thanks to Jon Hickman for thinking of me and Substrakt!)

The first event, Blender! was held at Aalto University Design Factory and aimed to give creative companies the opportunity to discuss the future of the industry and how doing business is affected by global changes. We were divided into groups and discussed the trends and weak signals relevant to our businesses, we then selected 2 themes to discuss in depth. The objective of these discussions was for the group to focus on the themes and develop a new business idea. Our business idea was an interactive platform called 'Grandmother' a concept inspired from attempting to oppose the 'Big Brother' concept. This is a blog post for another time i think!

I met several really interesting individuals and companies, especially a chap called Tuomas Siitonen from Part. We had a great discussion about projects involving new media within the built environment and i see a great opportunity to work with Tuomas and Part in the future.

CEB (Creative Economy and Beyond) was a 2 day international conference on the creative economy. There were several fascinating presentations, 1 of which that I found especially relevant and interesting was a talk from Professor Joachim Sauter from the Berlin University of Arts. Joachim runs a company called ART+COM that produces some pretty amazing interactive media solutions. I wrote a brief post about 1 particular interesting ART + COM project on a brand new blog Substrakt has started called Architekture. (more to come from this blog soon)

We managed to get to the launch of Design Week held at Helsinki's impressive Cable Factory (seems like it's standard for all good creative venues to be old factories!). It was inspiring to get close up with the Helsinki creative scene and experience the type of work the city is producing.

All in all a fab trip and I highly recommend the city to anyone who fancies a visit. So thanks again to those people who got me involved.

We have just had news that we won the international design competition for the design of Golden Square, in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter, as part of a team led by Capita Lovejoy's Birmingham office, beating over 100 international practices in the process.

Golden Square is being created as one of the first new projects in Birmingham City Council's 'Big City Plan', which will see the city centre transformed over the coming years. The proposals for this new public square seek to create an exciting, iconic and inspiring space, which would act as the focal point to the Jewellery Quarter.

Our part of the proposal was to implement digital media technology, providing visitor information facilities as an integral component of the scheme - connecting users of the square to the facilities and businesses within the Jewellery Quarter. This is a great opportunity for Substrakt to work closely with sister company Subcom to provide innovative touch screen display solutions.

We are delighted to have the opportunity to be involved in such a significant project and are excited to work closely with Capita Lovejoy and the wider design team, which include David Patten, Bryant Priest Newman, Ramboll Whitby Bird, Light Bureau, and Ocmis.

The design has been unveiled.
More on the BBC site

Planning permission has been granted for Birmingham's V Building, what is said to be Britain’s tallest all-residential tower. Scheduled for completion in 2013.

danadra.com
BBC news
thevbuilding.com

A few pictures of the yearbook we recently produced for Birmingham's School of Architecture

This work by artist Felice Varini has no doubt been knocking around blogs for a while now but I only came across it for the first time today, and I think you'll agree with me that it is AMAZING!!
http://www.varini.org

The Birmingham School of Architecture are celebrating their 100 year anniversary this year, and needed a logo and a web site.

For the logo we worked with the head of department and tutors. They wanted something that would represent the school's various locations over the past years and for the future. The school began at Margaret street, then moved to Gosta Green, to Perry Barr, back to Gosta Green, and then will move down to Eastside in the next few years. Hence the curve, which references the points of the geographical locations. This logo will be used to represent the school after the centenary has passed.

The web site's main function is to advertise the centenary ball and allow students and alumni to purchase tickets. Once registered the alumni are given the opportunity to add a profile and search for other alumni and view their profiles (a sort of 'friends reunited' come 'facebook', only a tad simpler!). This web site will be reviewed after the ball and developed to use as the school's main web site.
www.bsa-alumni.org.uk (won't be able to view many pages without being a registered student or alumni of the school i'm afraid)

We have recently uploaded a web site called 'first site' for MADE. This site will be a grower, and aims to represent young people's views and voices on architecture and the projects they have engaged in. It is being launched officially tomorrow, along with other projects, at MADE's symposium titled 'Under the Influence - The power of young people to inform public space'. I'll let Julia Ellis (Chief Executive of MADE) do the explaining...

'Creative Communities is directed to increasing the voices of young people and helping to ensure their opinions are heard and acted upon. It started with Youth Space, a Government Office West Midlands Commission, where young people worked collaboratively with architects and artists to create their own spaces in 6 different parts of the region. Leading on from this, Creative Communities is strengthening the strategic regional context for young people's sustainable and self-directed engagement with the designed environment, particularly within the planning and regeneration contexts. Creative Communities comprises three live projects and First Site, a virtual architecture centre for young people.'

The 'First Site' logo we created:

and the web site:

www.firstsite.org.uk

I’m holding in my hand a 20 year old document entitled ‘The Highbury Initiative – Proceedings of the Birmingham City Centre Challenge Symposium’. The reason I have this document is that we were commissioned by Joe Holyoak (Architect, Urban Designer, and principal lecturer at BCU) to design the marketing material for the ’20 years on – Anniversary Conference’.

The original Symposium took place on the 25th-27th March 1988, and as a result of a weekend’s intensive brainstorming the foundations were laid for most of the transformation of the city centre which has taken place since.

The participants came from a wide range of backgrounds: architecture, planning and landscape, the development and business worlds, economic development and management consultants, artists, surveyors and landowners, councillors and local and central government officials. They came from many parts of the world: the east to west coasts of USA, Japan, Holland and West Germany.

The theme identified for the weekend was that of the ‘City as Theatre’ because the actions necessary to make cities exciting, attractive, comfortable places can be likened to putting on a show. The participants were divided into six workgroups each with a set of issues to consider:

- Producing the Show – The role of the city centre and resources;
- Setting the Stage – urban design and landscape;
- Casting the Roles – user perception;
- Directing the Actors – movement and transportation;
- Managing the Stage – management and maintenance;

The main solutions to come from the symposium amongst others were:

The Gateways
A ‘clear’ welcome strategy
Routes across the city must be clarified to help people find their way.
Public transport stop-off points must be improved.
An exciting mode of public transport, appealing to visitor.

Distinctive Quarters
- the Jewellery Quarter, entered off Newhall Street – a craft/creative quarter;
- the Chinese Quarter, off Hurst Street – an entertainment and cultural quarter;
- the Science Quarter at Aston;
- a Media Quarter at Digbeth;
- a Convention Quarter off Broad Street;
- Business Quarters off Victoria Square and at Five Ways;
- the Civic Quarter around the Council House

The Ring Roads
The conclusion of this was re-conceiving the role of the inner ring road resulting in reducing traffic within the city by taking away through traffic.

Pedestrian Policy
The overall strategy addressed:
- Access
- Signage
- Linkages
- Pedestrian priority
- Control and enforcement
- Ground floor frontages
- Grain / scale
- Landscaping which reduces traffic conflicts
- Paving materials
- Relationship to traffic, loading, parking, public transport
- Disabled persons
- Secondary systems, including existing arcades and new block subdivisions

All a matter of image?

“- a city in a tearing hurry, addicted to instant success, biggest, first, pragmatic, profitable, confusing, incoherent and monotone. A concept of natural development seemed to have been swept away. There was neither time for people to participate in city development, nor time for the city landscape and its people to absorb that development. Collaboration with time is important.”

Birmingham is sitting on a golden opportunity, but there is a need for economic energy, a new atmosphere and commitment to the end product. London and the South East have peaked and the West Midlands is seen as a current growth region.

This strong commercial base provides direction to the role and functioning of the city’s future, but it has resulted in narrow, single-function centre which offers neither 24 hour activities nor a complete range of activities, since such important elements as housing are missing.

The city has no emotional appeal. It is difficult to find your way around which is particularly daunting for the pedestrian. Open space and greenery are minimal, the potential of canals and water has not been developed; there are too few fine old buildings and no first class modern ones.

Harsh words… but fair? These thoughts, highlighted 20 years ago, still seem important and relevant in today’s Birmingham, particularly Eastside where I would love to see some of this pedestrian joy, greenery, and use of the canals and water.

The symposium produced some essential solutions and made a great step forward for the Cities image and usability. I’m looking forward to hearing the results that come from the anniversary conference to be held on the 14th of April.

This is the first stage of a new piece of artwork by the graphic designer Max Barrett. This artwork, amongst others, will feature on a new web site that will profile and sell works from various artists...
Due to launch mid march.