Over the past month, K4 have been proud to be part of a collaborative billboard paste-up at Edible Eastside as part of 48SHEET, a project where artists transform up to 100 billboards in Birmingham City Centre for nearly a month.  Cathy Wade, 48Sheet artists Candice Smith and Faith Pearson, and myself, Sarah Taylor Silverwood, spent the week pasting old billboard sheets onto a disused shipping container. We began a process of layering and reworking the old posters, often returning to the site to find that the strong rain had moved or washed away the work. It was great to share ideas between artists, architects and curators about the transformation of the urban landscape, as well as having some interesting conversations with the public on Fazeley Street and from the canal.

Below are a few pictures of the project, and you can find an interesting write up by Cathy Wade here, and her Flickr album here. The 48SHEET project space at the Mailbox housed a full programme of events by featured artists, for more click here.

“Bob Ghosh, a director of K4 Architects, believes the new 23-storey “slimmed down” tower is the “best yet”, thanks in part to extensive consultation with stakeholders.

“Although it has been a long process, it is quite good to have considered a number of options and ended up with what we consider to be the best solution for the site,” he said.

“It is quite healthy to have had that engagement process, even though we have had lots of comments and objections, we have managed to improve the design and have something which we hope will be universally supported.”

Outlining some of the key differences he said: “We have adjusted the height so it is more in line with some of the new buildings going up in that area. We have also slimmed it down quite considerably. There were some concerns about it being bulky so we have given it a more slender form.”

Other changes include additional glazing, as well as a lightweight box on the top of the building that will glow at night and alterations to make it look “less solid”.

“There were some concerns it looked a bit too solid in terms of materials,” Mr Ghosh added.

“Also we have refined the actual cladding material and the solid metal panels we are using a much higher quality material than before.

“It is designed to both contrast and compliment the materials in the area and the listed building.”

Mr Ghosh said the consultation process to get to this point had been extensive

“We always knew it would be a fairly complex process and all the way through have been engaging with a lot of people and genuinely believe the design we have come up with now is better than when we started,” he said.

“We have addressed some of the major issues that were raised by the city council and some of the planning committee members and have come up with something that will hopefully satisfy most of the stakeholders.”

The revised plan will also see a large part of the former fire station’s courtyard become new public open space and every part of the old building brought back into “meaningful use”, according to Mr Ghosh.

The latest design features management offices and retail space where fire engine bays were and a private study area for students in the former boardroom.

Parts of the old fire station will also be connected with the new tower.

Mr Ghosh hopes planning approval will be given in April, enabling developers Watkin Jones to start construction by the end of this year with a view to completion by autumn 2014.

“This is something that will have an impact upon the skyline and put Birmingham on the map in terms of providing a real state-of-the-art offering for students,” said Mr Ghosh.”

Read More http://www.birminghampost.net/birmingham-business/birmingham-business-news/businesslatest/2012/03/08/birmingham-fire-station-tower-block-plans-re-submitted-65233-30484832/#ixzz1oc6uF13U

This year we will be launching our K4 in Cannes blog, tracking all the exciting goings on! We hope to launch it on 7th March on our website. Make sure you are following us on Twitter and Facebook too for regular updates.

• Follow Bob Ghosh on Twitter
• Follow K4 Architects on Twitter
• Find us on Facebook

This followed a great write up for Brum in The New York Times, who named ‘foodiest town’ Birmingham 19 out of 45 top places to go in 2012! Click here for the article.

“Bob Ghosh of Birmingham-based K4 Architects said: ‘Madin was a serious architect, who understood form, space and material, unlike many of his contemporaries.

[‘Yet] due to the pace of change in our city, many of Madin’s buildings have now disappeared. Some should have been retained, most notably the Post and Mail building and plaza, which had more than a subtle reference to Mies.

‘Had he ultimately realised the ambition of building the inverted ziggurat form of the Birmingham Central Library in shimmering white stone, then perhaps it would have been listed, rather than being condemned as another example of concrete brutalism.

‘The more I see of Mecanoo’s new replacement Library of Birmingham, with its highly stylised form and its frivolous envelope, I can’t help questioning whether we’re doing the right thing. Nevertheless, we did need a new library for the 21st century and Argent and Glenn Howells will replace Madin’s building with something of extraordinary quality and address the dysfunctional spaces around it.’

‘Coincidentally, the Ikon Gallery currently has an exhibition by artist Stuart Whipps which reveals Birmingham Central Library’s previously hidden archive of Madin’s work. The exhibition chronicles the sheer volume of the man’s prolific achievements – pictures of archive boxes bulging with drawings, notes and hand sketches, newly commissioned photographs of the fine surface detail and texture of some of his surviving buildings and perhaps most interestingly retracing some of his trips to America, where he researched the work of modernist masters like Mies, Paul Rudolph, amongst others.

He added: ‘My overwhelming feeling is that he was one of our city fathers and without his legacy, many of the good things in modern Birmingham would not have happened. Perversely, while he treasured his buildings, he was not sentimental and would have been quite excited by the notion of replacing them with something new after a few decades.’”

The barns will be converted with a single storey, simple design to complement the original buildings. Sustainability is an important feature and the building will benefit from renewable energy from an air source heat pump system for hot water and heating, and there will also be supplementary heating from a wood fuelled burner.