Big wins for The Green Heart, Birmingham
We are thrilled our campus re-design for the University of Birmingham has been garlanded with awards this season.
First up was the Royal Town Planning Institute’s West Midlands Award for Planning Excellence. The judges described the Green Heart as ‘progressive and forward-thinking’ - not only encouraging good health and well-being, but also embracing new technology and ideas.
Chair of the judging panel, Luke Hillson, said of the project: “Using the clock tower as the centre focus to organise and arrange a highly co-ordinated public realm, while ensuring that people and social interaction are the driving force behind the proposals, has resulted in a high quality project. The University of Birmingham now has a ‘Green Heart’ which undoubtedly lives up to its name.” Winning the regional prize puts us forward for the National Awards to be held next spring.
The Green Heart also saw high praise at the AJ Awards 2019, becoming one of the few entries to be ‘Highly Commended’ by the judges - and the only scheme to receive such recognition in the Landscape Architecture Category. As the judging panel put it, the Green Heart is “An ambitious new park linking together a large campus of very diverse buildings. A big achievement!”.
…And that’s not all! The Green Heart has been selected as a 2020 Civic Trust Awards Successful Project. It is one of only 49 successful National/International projects from 250 applications, and will receive either an Award or be Highly Commended at the 2020 Civic Trust Awards ceremony in March 2020 at the Imperial War Museum North, Manchester. We are very pleased that the scheme was recognised as a Regional Finalist in the Civic Trust’s Selwyn Goldsmith Award for Universal Design.