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.

Stef highlighted some really interesting Birmingham folk to follow on Twitter last week, so we decided it was about time we shared some of our favourite Birmingham blogs we've been reading this year. Some are creative, some spotlight the cool work of others and a couple are downright strange. They all make up the fantastic Birmingham blogging community and should be in your feed reader!

So in no particular order here's some of the best Birmingham blogs we've been reading this year:

Click the Subscribe link next to each blog to add them to Google Reader, or download this file to your desktop and import it into your Google Reader. If you don't use Google Reader, then you'll most likely need to download this file as well, look for the button that says import, cross your fingers and hope it all works out ok.

Tip: Try subscribing to something you've never even heard off!

• Big Cat


• Birmingham Social Media Cafe


• Substrakt


• Boxer Design - Soak it up


• Chris Unitt


• Clusta


• 383news


• Created in Birmingham


• Cul-de-Sac


• Custard Factory


• daveharte.com


• D'log :: blogging since 2000


• From Under the Rotunda


• Fullrange Blog


• Fused Magazine


• Home of the Autumnstore Blog


• Jibbering


• Joanna Geary


• Life Agency Blog


• Pete Ashton's Weblog


• Podnosh Blog


• Robot Vs Dinosaur


• Stefan Lewandowski


• 4Talent magazine


• Multipack


• The TAK! Design Blog


• ASH-10


• Audiences Central Blog


• CMYKern


• Capsule Blog


• Fierce Earth


• IE - Web, Interactive, Design, Brand


• Fireloop Creative


• Surely? - stuff & nonsense


• Prime Objective Blog


• Chromatouch


• Antonio Gould


• Rich Batsford


• Ganbaru!


• Digbeth is Good


• Birmingham Eastside


• The Jewellery Quarter


• Birmingham: It's Not Shit


• 4iP


• Birmingham Conservation Trust


• Web development blog


• Supercool


• mama feel good!


• no2self.net


• One Black Bear


• Pete Ashton

Did we miss you? or do you know about have a fantastic blog that we've totally overlooked, perhaps you totally disagree with our selections, let us know by adding them in the comments.

Some notes from Todays 4ip launch at Hello Digital

What is 4ip?
investment fund for public sector digital media. support web, games, etc improve the lives of people

what are we looking for?

really big ideas, 20 big ideas, big partners, delivery stuff though digital media
support small risky ideas,

criteria

• inspiring change, original, stir things up


• scratch important itch, what's the problem?


• it isn't about telly- collaboration and participation


• thrive after 4ip

particular interest

• helping people discover stuff that's already out there


• digital democracy, keep an eye on money and power


• amplifying voices, wizdom of crowds, connect people


• tools, tools to make trouble, (e.g. uk blog search)


• networks


• participation


• people


• open


• less is more


• conversation

4ip.org.uk

does your idea stir things up?

• disruptive ideas, build stuff that allows people to do stuff much easier


• what can you do when networks talk to each other? what are the needs? what problems can be solved?


• massively local, global to local. have no poverty of ambition, reflecting community


• we're open to bonkers ideas, i'm for maing horrible mistakes


• participation and collaboration is catalytic, networks, what it makes in terms of making and sharing media for everybody


• doing stuff that was previous impossible, 4ip making the next wikipedia


• finding commercial in public sector, commercially is more sustainable


• patientoption.co.uk, trip advisor for hospitals, public based performance data back to the NHS, b2b product of of and public site


• mozilla is about open source, but make a successful business


• we are open to innovation in intellectual property

q & a

• how do you make money? from digital media projects


• if were making stuff, it has to get out as broadly as possible, if you make stuff and you don't allow it to be shared and copied for free your probably losing out


• give it away has been one of the key areas digital media platform has grown


• printers are free, ink is expensive


• chris anderson blog wired


• the best forms of collaborative media won't be about genres


• 4ip helping web design companies make games


• researched based R & D for digital media for the creative industries, instead of life sciences


• free is the just the first bit, you do give things away but you can make money because of that


• 4ip couldn't be more different from making great telly, stepping right into the water of participatory media


• they won't have an audience they will be people using it


• the message about 4ip is about making the tech better


• the creative economy will be the economy


• it's not been proven that large companies will dominate this space, having smaller companies is better

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

more info at the Custard Factory blog

This weekend we headed to WordCamp UK 2008 which was, conveniently for us, held in Brum. We only made it to the Saturday due to other commitments, so are looking forward to seeing the feedback and resources from the Sunday.

The day was very interesting, and it was especially encouraging to see that other people, like us, are making the most of Wordpress as a CMS. The SEO for Wordpress was also of great interest, so we can help fire our clients fresh WP sites up the web ranking! It was also good to meet and network with a few like minds from Brum as well as from all over the UK and further.

More resources and info to be found on:
The WordCamp UK 2008 Blog
&
The Wiki

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

Another date for ya diaries... in fact, it's probably all a bit late for that, so forget ya diaries and just head down there later!

A date for ya diaries...