Octahedron
This residential development is situated in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter. The brief was to produce a design for 55 residential apartments with a basement parking area on a tight site in a formerly industrial area which has been subject to significant regeneration in recent years.
The design concept was to provide a distilled version of the nearby Victorian industrial buildings using a palette of just brick and glass. The street façade contains greater modelling than the other elevations with the structural bays defined by a giant order of brick piers and the windows and spandrels set back by one brick. This formal front elevation continues the rhythm of listed buildings alongside. This subtle referencing of the historic fabric continues on the other facades in that the windows are composed in an informal arrangement which mirrors the adjacent properties.
There was a further reason for the window arrangement. We wanted to introduce variety into the apartment types which largely follow the same plan. By locating the windows in different positions within the rooms we were able to give the purchasers a greater choice.
Steel frame was chosen as the structural system for economic reasons with cavity external walls, pre-cast concrete floors and metal stud partitions.
