Tamed

Client: Environment Agency

with Stuart Mugridge.

Also collaborating with Jenni Coles-Harris, the Environment Agency, Jacobs, CH2M Hill, Townscape and Jacksons-Civils

[2013-16]

Artist involvement and collaboration with the Environment Agency on a large flood mitigation scheme. Witton, Birmingham.

We explored many options with the EA over a long stretch of river, mindful of the EA’s Access for All design guide. Though upstream water storage was planned, housing alongside Brookvale Road so close to the 1940’s canalised river, meant a flood wall could not be avoided.

Research into the area led us to The Kynoch Press. Witton's Kynoch Ltd [former ICI works was once home to one of this country's leading printing houses. The Kynoch Press was part of an early twentieth century triumvirate that ruled printing and publishing in Britain and even had an international impact. It attracted and nurtured great designers and typographers to give industrial commissions a touch of inspiration and grace far beyond the capability and knowledge of many modern businesses. The heyday of the Kynoch Press was through the 1920s, '30s and '40s but the business did continue in some form until the recessions of the 1980s.

Through the design-team process we began to see the merit in a line of graphic concrete text printed in Milner Initials; a face designed for The Kynoch Press in the 1920s by Donald Ewart Milner. Huddersfield-born Milner was also one-time headmaster of Aston School of Arts and Crafts.

Though we had a wider strategy for physical access, through community involvement, Stuart Mugridge and I also proposed and designed a viewing platform for visual access to the Tame at the local the bus stop - maximising its exposure and value to local residents. The shape echoed refuge elements of Perry Bridge (also known as the Zig Zag Bridge) in Perry Barr, built in 1711.

Whilst the wall of texts hoped to illuminate the river behind and tell a story of the forgotten Tame, within the river railings and platform also lay patterns and clues to Kynoch’s lost designs.