Organic Eastside: regeneration by maniacs
Written by Nicky Getgood on Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 ( Start discussion )
Tags: bennie gray, big city plan, Custard Factory, digbeth business association, horton project, jonathan bore, made, organiceastide, rescue geography, richard tregrouse, south birmingham college
So Bennie Gray’s been in the paper saying Birmingham needs a few more Custard Factories. George Ferguson, who spoke at the Organic Eastside seminar held by MADE* and Digbeth Business Association in South Birmingham College last night, would heartilly agree. He feels that creative hubs are part of a pattern that make up ‘complex cities’.
George’s philosophy of looking beyond architecture in regeneration, planing change and bringing the best out of places rather than rebuilding, went down a storm.
He had a very interesting take on the credit crunch, that it may actually be a blessing in disguise. It’ll stop the building of blinkered, one-use projects in their tracks for a start. It could instead leave room for ’slow architecture’ of more flexible, mixed-use buildings, which develop organically over time, adapting to economic and environmental change as they grow.
George later said that we need to ‘identify the maniacs’ who’ll make exciting places by sympathetically utilising their environments rather than flattening and rebuilding them. Bennie Gray is one such maniac, and Birmingham is blessed to have him.
Jonathan Bore’s less popular presentation of the Big City Plan wasn’t exactly new information – expand the concrete collar in building a bigger and better city centre. Some felt he had too many questions (for which he’s had the time to find answers) rather than solutions and others felt the means being used to achieve the goal were questionable, with talk of areas such as Highgate undergoing ’social cleansing’.
Other highlights were the Rescue Geography presentation, Richard Trengrouse’s Digbeth wisdom and the presence of the men behind the planned Horton Project opposite Selfridges – a ‘city within a city’ that will transform Digbeth Cold Storage and surrounding buildings. Let’s hope they move those bus stops, which are as restrictive as that concrete collar, whilst they’re at it.
