PaperYard

Client: Wild Grey Developments

With BPN Architects

[2022-]

GGI image courtesy of Village Design - https://www.villagedesign.co.uk/

A landscape concept for a residential development in Birmingham’s Gun Quarter. Currently in technical design stage. The idea of forms and elements of outdoor ‘reading rooms’ was derived from the past occupants of the site.

1. People’s Hall of Science.

“In 1840 a group of Birmingham artisans announced that they intended to build a People’s Hall of Science ‘containing a library, a lecture room, school rooms, reading rooms, committee rooms, dinner and tea or refreshment rooms, and kitchen and other conveniences for the use and instruction and amusement of the people and the improvement of their understanding, morals and health and for promoting their rational enjoyments” https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?threads/peoples-hall-revisited.44495/

2. J.W. Gill cardboard boxes.

An advert for J.W. Gill states their machine made boxed were of different colours , shapes and sizes. Might this variation find its way into forms that create spaces, offer resting opportunities more than simply seating and privide the capacity for dense planting?

3. Adjacent printing works

The past adjacent printing works suggested a text based artwork as backdrop and point of interest for those enjoying a quiet moment.