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.

The solution of a flood wall along Brookvale Road could not be avoided. However 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. Through community involvement, Stuart Mugridge and I also designed a viewing platform for visual access to the river at the local the bus stop - maximising who would now see the hidden river. The wall of texts hoped to illuminate the river behind and tell a story of the forgotten Tame and its industries.

The Birmingham Typographic Hub and Witton's Kynoch Ltd [former ICI works] that 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.