黑洞社区

Birmingham council last week granted planning permission to the 5.5ha university campus in the Eastlands area of the city, but it has emerged that lead architect BDP has been replaced by Birmingham-based Associated Architects.

Associated Architects has already worked on a number of Birmingham City University鈥檚 schemes, designing the schools of art and jewellery and a 拢25m extension to the university鈥檚 health department.

The university said it had always been its intention to hire a lead architect after the masterplan stage, but a source at BDP said the practice had expected to take its plans on.

The source said: 鈥淚t may have been its intention from the start to hire Associated Architects, but let鈥檚 just say we didn鈥檛 know that. It was our piece of work and it is now working within our masterplan.鈥�

The campus will include a TV studio, library, concert hall, performance theatre, music recital hall, lecture theatres and a learning resource centre. Faithful + Gould has been appointed QS and cost consultant, Arup M&E services engineer and Mace project manager.