BUILD YOUR OWN WORLD
The aim is to map a neighbourhood and explain the chosen options. The class is to be split into several groups (2/3 Max. ). One member of each group will play the jury of the competition.
Today, 1 million people live in the West Midlands capital, Birmingham. In the UK, the City is outsized only by London.
A merchant city in the Middle Ages, it grew into a major urban centre during the Industrial Revolution. After suffering widespread destruction during World War II, it underwent a period of reconstruction that greatly emphasized high- rise housing (tour d’habitation). In the 1960s, ring roads nicknamed “the Concrete Collar” were built around the city.
Industrial decline left Birmingham with a core of obsolete zones. In the 1990s a first period of regeneration schemes concentrated on the western part of the city centre. In 2010 it was the turn of the eastern part, Digbeth, with a £6 billion scheme due to be completed by 2018. Under its new name of East side it will spread over 420 acres.
EASTSIDE, A NEIGHBOURHOOD IN NEED OF RENEWAL
Listed buildings: buildings of great historical or artistic value that has official protection to prevent it from being changed or destroyed.
Eyeshore : an unpleasant or ugly sight in a public place.
TASK:
Your urban planning agency is to enter a competition aiming at redeveloping Eastside, in Birmingham. The Eastside neighbourhood has been plagued by a series of problems:
- Parking space: the streets are jammed by residents’ and visitors’ vehicles.
- Derelict canals, abandoned pools and ramshackle (déglingué) industrial buildings encourage vandalism and graffiti.
- The place is densely built with a number of uninhabited dwellings.
- The ring road and inner urban ring that circle the area suffer from traffic congestion.
- Warwick Bar, a cluster of historic listed buildings, has not yet been refurbished (rénové).
You will take into account the above specifications and suggest a redevelopment scheme for East side: you will draft a map and explain to the jury which options you have chosen. You may decide to relocate the buildings but also pull down some of them so as to build facilities, broaden (élargir) streets or turn them into pedestrian areas….
