Pay a visit to any of our sites and you can see how much we’ve already invested in our fantastic facilities, helping us to become one of the UK’s top 10 universities for spending on facilities in the 2012 Complete University Guide.
The 'Parkside Building', a flagship extension of our existing City Centre Campus, is our latest ambitious venture.
The Parkside Building
The Parkside Building will provide a state-of-the art home for the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design (BIAD), incorporating a Media Hub, and marks the first step in creating a multi-million pound centre of excellence. It will be ready for staff and students in September 2013. Phase 2 will be created in addition.
The city centre campus will support the creative industries, business engagement, applied innovation and cultural excellence.
The design has been influenced by the ideals of the Bauhaus – a German school founded by Walter Gropius that combined crafts and the fine arts, operating from 1919 to 1933 when it was forced to close down by the Nazi regime.
The building forms the first phase of Birmingham’s Eastside - an important part of Birmingham’s Big City Plan. The new building could fit in the same volume as the Albert Hall and 32 Olympic size swimming pools could be squeezed inside.
State-of-the-art facilities
BIAD students will work from a core of workshops in the centre of the five-floor building, with studio space around them. There is also ‘collision space’ where students and staff from different courses will see each other to pass the time of day, and exchange thoughts and ideas. The design of the atrium embodies this notion, with a central circulation stair encouraging students to move through a series of shared spaces before entering their department. The idea is also expressed in the main building facades, seemingly formed by a series of overlapping and interlocking boxes.
The Parkside Building will also house the University’s School of Media, where cutting-edge facilities will include five state-of-the-art TV studios, together with seven radio studios and post-production suites, while classroom teaching on the courses will move to Millennium Point. These resources will be integrated with those already at Millennium Point for students on media technology courses, allowing for more collaboration between students on different programmes and creating a greater campus ‘feel’.
Joining Millennium Point
The 18,310m² Parkside Building is adjacent to the landmark Millennium Point building, already home to the University’s Faculty of Technology, Engineering and the Environment (TEE) and Birmingham School of Acting (BSA), and both buildings are connected thanks to a bridge link.
This has provided the University with the opportunity to converge some of the student support facilities within Millennium Point, including the re-modelling of over 3,000m² of existing areas within TEE.
Students, staff and visitors to the new campus will also benefit from nearby transport links including the redeveloped New Street station and the proposed high speed rail link.
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