Business News
Changing face of Birmingham: Symphony Hall
Gone but not forgotten: the former Birmingham library, built in 1974
The building blocks of a city: celebrating 50 years of Arup
During 2018, a company which has played a key role in the creation, design and construction of some of the world’s most famous buildings and infrastructure will celebrate its 50 year anniversary of establishment in the Midlands. The company is Arup, an independent firm of planners, engineering designers, consultants and technical specialists, which was founded in 1946 by Sir Ove Arup. Opened in 1968, the Arup
Birmingham office was led by Ernest Irwin. The early days of developing the office were quite challenging but they did include a very close relationship with universities in the region and in particular the University of Birmingham. Arup has worked with the university on over 100 projects going back to the late 1950s. The university has also been a very rich source of Arup graduates. In fact many of the current Arup leadership are drawn from the best universities in the region.
Civic building in Birmingham
during the late 1960s and early 1970s culminated in Arup’s design of the Birmingham Library and Civic Centre at Paradise Circus in 1974. Active involvement in a city renaissance during the 1980s saw Arup complete the engineering design of Birmingham International Convention Centre (ICC) and Symphony Hall. These were frontline efforts by the city council to regenerate the city centre, which had been hit hard by economic recession. The city’s symphony orchestra, under the direction of Simon Rattle, was achieving a growing international reputation, but was being held back by not having a world-class concert hall to call its own. The combination of Symphony Hall and ICC was the solution. During 1982, Arup invested in the
acquisition of the Department of Transport Warwick sub-unit which led to the establishment of a new
Artist’s impression of the Paradise development
‘Active involvement in a city renaissance during the 1980s saw Arup complete the engineering design of Birmingham International Convention Centre (ICC) and Symphony Hall’
office in Coventry. This soon became the foundation for a global infrastructure capability. Through the 1980s, Arup introduced ‘digital’ to its global business and the Midlands offices used computer aided design. Today Arup has become a pioneering company in the advancement of Building Information Modelling (BIM) and the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to create and design complex assets for the built environment. By the late 1990s, the Arup capability had grown to 300 across the Midlands. The investment in the ICC propelled the opportunity to open up the west side of the city, with many in Arup working alongside Argent to bring forward Brindleyplace which was a regional game changer for world-class property development. 40 years after designing the
original city library, the regional renaissance has led to the joint Argent and Birmingham City Council proposition for Paradise Circus. Innovative thinking by both the developer and the council has led to one of the most radical
20 CHAMBERLINK April 2018
development schemes in the city for a generation. Arup has provided all engineering and specialist designs for masterplanning and delivery of the first two phases of the development. When finally complete, this will comprise around 1.8 million square feet of new city space, including office buildings, shops, bars, restaurants and a hotel. Other regeneration renaissance
includes the Mailbox, their collaboration with Ballymore on Snowhill development, Eastside Park with Birmingham City Council and a significant part of the Birmingham City University Campus at Eastside. But the limits of Arup
involvement go far outside the Birmingham city boundary. The early design thinking of UK High Speed 1 started in the Midlands and that know-how has catapulted them into High Speed 2, where Arup experts from around the world are making a significant contribution to the success of this investment. Arup is involved in a number of key HS2 projects, including the recently awarded contract to help develop and refine
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