Monday and Tuesday
The climate change festival is offering Birmingham residents the opportunity to see a hidden side of the city – from private buildings to green roofs - and hear the views of leading designers, architects and developers along the way.
All the walks, talks and private views taking place during the festival cover the theme of sustainability, focusing on how buildings and spaces are changing to respond to climate change and the need for a low-carbon future.
Sunday saw Nick Bird from ISIS Waterside regeneration leading a walk along Birmingham’s former industrial canalside. ISIS is redeveloping Warwick Bar with environmental sustainability a core consideration, with the historic waterspace restored and reused as a possible delivery point for waterborne bio-mass fuel to power a combined heat and power plant.
Monday gave people a rare opportunity to visit the inside of one of Birmingham’s most iconic buildings – the Rotunda. With a design by Glenn Howells Architects, Urban Splash has converted the circular 1960s office space into apartments, using natural ventilation through a bespoke window system, rather than energy-heavy air conditioning. Tessa Kordeczka, our walks and talks correspondent, reports: ‘It was no surprise that the Rotunda visit was hugely popular, with 50 people joining in. One person who came remembered working in the Rotunda in the 1970s and was astonished by its reincarnation. Residents are moving in to the scheme now so it’s probably one of the last chances that the public will have to look around.’
Later, in a talk to a group of 30, Glenn Howells set out to show how Birmingham is responding to the sustainability agenda. Welcoming the city’s objective to cut emissions by 60 per cent by 2026 – higher than any other UK city – he called however for more evidence-based and consistent data about carbon emissions and the built environment to help find the right solutions for Birmingham. Car transport remained a real challenge for Birmingham, he said.
Tuesday saw heavy rain – not exactly ideal weather for a rooftop tour of the city, but not enough to deter 25 visitors touring Birmingham’s green roofs. Led by research scientists from the University of Birmingham, the tour covered three different types of green roof – including a ‘brown’ roof made from recycled materials such as ash from the local waste incinerator and another set up as a city-centre wildlife habitat (complete with live video link). Sophie Scott, our festival ear to the ground reports: ‘It was wet, but fascinating. It was lucky it was raining in a way as that gave us a chance to see how well water runs off these roofs. The more intensive rainfall we’re likely to see with climate change means many existing drainage systems, such as guttering, will not be able to cope. This is the kind of absorbent surface we need to prevent overloading of drains, which leads to sewage flooding into rivers killing fish.’
Other visits during the festival include a tour of Birmingham’s city centre by Ken Shuttleworth, born and raised in Birmingham and the founder of Make Architects, the firm behind the Cube development – another sustainable scheme in the making and itself the subject of a tour. There are guided tours around historic Bournville, Fort Dunlop, a RIBA award-nominated building that’s also got a green roof. And a tour by Urban Initiatives is demonstrating how Birmingham’s Big City Plan is transforming the city into a low-carbon walking environment. Other tours include an energy tour of Walsall Eco House and a chance to find out more about eco-Summerfield.
