Designs for Three Chamberlain Square submitted to planning
Three Chamberlain Square is a new 180,000 sq ft commercial building, designed by FCBStudios. An elegant new office at the forefront of the future workplace agenda, its design is centred on sustainability, wellbeing and place, to create a transformational working environment for the West Midlands.
A detailed planning application for Three Chamberlain Square at Paradise Birmingham has been submitted to Birmingham City Council on behalf of development managers MEPC. The application, alongside two other applications - a new 17 storey hotel on the corner of Paradise Street, designed through a collaboration between hotel experts ISA Architecture & Design and Paradise masterplanners Glenn Howells Architects, and a series of new public squares and pedestrian routes through the development, designed by Grant Associates landscape architects - completes Phase Two of Paradise, the £700 million redevelopment of the heart of Birmingham.
The proposal for Three Chamberlain Square offers an inspiring ‘inside/outside’ environment that provides spaces to suit different roles and working styles. Daylight, natural ventilation, dramatic views and access to the outside are found throughout the building to create agile, attractive spaces that encourage people to come together to collaborate and exchange ideas as well as offering resilience against future health emergencies.
Rooted in its location, the building takes references from neighbouring significant buildings. The adjacent Grade I Listed Birmingham Town Hall has inspired the clearly articulated base, middle and top sections of the building and the façade draws on Birmingham’s tradition of beautifully crafted red terracotta buildings, with fluted vertical ribs and florid motifs that will create a distinctive but complementary character within this prominent city centre location.
George Wilson, Associate at FCBStudios said “Our approach to Three Chamberlain Square has been to design an inspiring future working environment while pushing sustainability aspirations. Office floors are integrated with outside spaces, and optimised to benefit from key views, daylight and natural ventilation, resulting in desirable and flexible spaces that reduce energy use. Three Chamberlain Square sits in an important part of the city. While paying homage to the built heritage, the new office building will also deliver new standards of modern environmental design, bringing with it opportunities and jobs to Birmingham.“
The design is pioneering in its approach to sustainability and aims to achieve UKGBC 2035-2050 operational energy targets and less than 600 kgCO2/m2 in embodied carbon. Throughout the early design stages FCBS Carbon - FCBStudios’ carbon calculator - was used to help steer strategic design choices, with more detailed modelling provided by Cundall in later stages. A fabric first approach has been adopted, with low u-values, low air permeability, natural ventilation, optimised glass to solid ratios, exposed thermal mass, air source heat pumps, chilled beams and photovoltaic panels all contributing to the low carbon, low energy building.
The application submissions follow a three-week virtual public consultation exercise in July which included an online webinar with the design teams together with video presentations and leaflets available to view on the website, as well as online comment forms and frequently asked questions.
As an important contributor to regional growth, Paradise is committed to creating high quality workplaces for the future.
Rob Groves, regional development director with Paradise development manager MEPC, said: ‘This is a very significant moment for us as a development as we submit our planning applications to Birmingham City Council to complete Phase Two. With two further landmark buildings in the shape of Three Chamberlain Square and the new hotel, we are bringing forward cutting edge proposals for highly sustainable buildings along with new public realm which knits Paradise and the wider city centre together, for the people of Birmingham to use and enjoy.’
Paradise Birmingham has already completed phase one of its development with One Chamberlain Square and Two Chamberlain Square providing some of the best views in Birmingham with stunning vistas across Chamberlain Square itself and of the city’s impressive Classical and Victorian civic architecture.
The Paradise redevelopment is being brought forward through Paradise Circus Limited Partnership (PCLP), a private-public joint venture with Birmingham City Council. The private sector funding is being managed by the international business of Federated Hermes, which has partnered with Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) on the first phase of the development. MEPC is the development manager.
Paradise sits in the country’s largest city centre Enterprise Zone and has already benefited from investment by the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP) in enabling and infrastructure works.
A website showcasing the vision for Paradise, in addition to a live time-lapse camera and all the latest news about the development, can be viewed at www.paradisebirmingham.co.uk
