City: Birmingham, United Kingdom
Floors: 52
Height: 500ft
Use: Residential/Retail
Developers: Miller
Architect: Eric Kuhne
Site:
http://www.civicarts.com/arena-square.php
NEW IMAGES ON WEBSITE
Great Civic Places are gifts to the City, but it is not enough to build open public space. We are plagued by a century of desolate public spaces. The pageantry of civic life is played out in the shops, restaurants, pubs, gardens and galleries that enfront these civic places. This animation of the street is what converts circulation spaces into meeting places. Arena Central will be become the Rockefeller Centre of Birmingham and the heart and soul of her café society.
The Vision: Dandara brings a towering identity to Birmingham's skyline: The V Building. Towers are part of the composition of all great cities, and Birmingham has designated Arena Square as a place for such a towering signature icon. Combing both legacy and prophesy, The V Building will draw from the great architecture of Victoria Square's heritage and add a new architectural statement as a prophesy for her future. Architecture can not forsake the quality of a City's streets, and The V Building.
Skybar & Observatory: The skyline of a city belongs to all of her people, and The V Building creates a mysterious vantage point to view Birmingham as no other building has ever done. Sweeping vistas of City Centre and Countryside that change from honey coloured stone and rolling green landscapes to constellations of lights at night: these are the living murals of our lives... and all will be open to those who visit our Sky Bar and Observatory. Once the providence of gods and designers, now the platform for one and all, The V Building will showcase Birmingham as never before.
Engaging City Life: The floor of a city is where her life is played out. Engaging the historic Alpha Tower, The V Building creates a new civic plaza that will breathe life into the floor of a city both day and night. Light shafts sparkle from the pavement, light wands engraved with the richness of Midland's Literature and Letters frame the ground. From Arena Square to Victoria Square: fountains, lighting, furnishing, and patterned pavement treat this great civic space as one of Birmingham's great civic parlours... hosting the gathering of her citizens, residents and denizens day and night... redeeming the street.
The V Building: Lattice fabric faÇades, luminescent shards, lighthouse quality skyline, civic art porte cochere, skygardens and sky bars, observatories, and lobbies of mystique and intrigue... these are the architectural elements that lift The V Building. Here architecture engages the imagination and hosts the romance of living in a great British City. The residents of the City's Centre are her guardians and hosts. Here restaurants, spa, bars, library, and reception rooms will welcome the best and brightest into the heart of Birmingham.We build tall. We build sound. We build all magnificent and proud
Signature for Birmingham: Residents of any city own two things: its skyline and its ground plane. The first in a silhouette drawn with distinction... the second in the spirited life day and night that captures the ethos of her grace. The V Building slices the sky with a scissors sculptural roof that frames the Sky Bar and Observatory: a place where everyone may gather to look out upon this fair City. Glowing at night as a beacon for the Midlands, blades of light meet luminescent top as a signature of the next generation of 21st century architecture for Birmingham
Cosmopolitan Sophistication: Birmingham is a City whose strengths come from the diversity of her citizens. The V Building will become a welcome hall for the variety of people who have made the Midlands their home, and Birmingham their identity. Cities at night, Cities of Light, Cities as the Marketplaces of Ideas: café society comes to Birmingham with a vengeance, and The V Building's entry rooms will become the stage for the excitement and intrigue, comfort and mythology of a city rediscovering herself
Linear Mode
