PROJECT TEAM
Client: Network Rail Architect: AZPA Lead consultant: Atkins Delivery partner: Mace
To understand the scale of the task facing
the project team it is useful to know the history of the site. The existing station, built in the 1960s, has an aesthetic based on raw, exposed concrete and soulless artifi cial light. The station includes 12 subterranean platforms, which are located in the gloom beneath the ground-level concourse. Daylight is absent from the concourse, which is situated beneath the 1960s Pallasades Shopping Centre and its accompanying concrete multi- storey car park. ‘The station is the gateway to Birmingham and currently it creates a really, really poor image of the city,’ says Ben Herbert, Network Rail’s communications manager. In 2006, 50 years after it fi rst opened,
A new atrium will be the centrepiece of the redeveloped station
All images courtesy of Network Rail
Birmingham City Council, Network Rail, the Department for Transport, regional development agency Advantage West Midlands and passenger transport executiveCentro backed proposals to revamp the station. The architects AZPA won the design competition with a proposal to remodel the existing station and shopping centre and expand the station to three-and-a-half times its current size. The new design features an enlarged concourse. This is lit from above by a giant atrium clad in ETFE, which has been punched through the centre of the Pallasades shopping centre. The refurbished platforms have been cleared of waiting rooms and clutter; they have lightwells to allow daylight to fi lter through from the concourse above. Access to the platforms will be improved
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Construction is constrained by the condition of the existing 1960s concrete structure, the accuracy of the existing ‘as-installed’ drawings and the unknowns that appear as areas are opened up
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nder Europe’s largest refurbishment project to date – the £600m Birmingham Gateway scheme – the city’s
dilapidated New Street railway station is being transformed into a light and modern 21st century transport hub. In addition to remodelling the station, the plan is to redevelop the upper-level 1960s shopping centre, while a new John Lewis department store will be built at the south of the station along with a town square to the east. The challenge for the designers and
contractors is that the station and shopping centre have to remain open throughout the redevelopment. It is a task made all the more diffi cult by New Street’s position as a key hub on the country’s railway network. In fact, it is the busiest station in the UK outside London, with one train arriving or departing every 30 seconds.
with the installation of 36 new escalators and 15 new public lifts, while new entrances and a new north-south pedestrian route running through the station will improve pedestrian access to the station and link it to the southern part of the city. To give it a new identity, the remodelled station will also be wrapped in a ribbon of shiny stainless steel cladding. Work on the remodelling started on site
in 2010. The station is being rebuilt in two phases over a fi ve-year period to allow it to remain in use throughout. Phase One involves construction of half of the station’s new concourse on the ground fl oor of the Pallasades car park. At Christmas 2012, this new concourse will open and the existing station will close. Phase Two involves the redevelopment of the existing station and construction of the remainder of the concourse and the John Lewis store. The scheme is due for completion in
February 2012 CIBSE Journal 25
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