Axis Design are architects in Birmingham based in the city's Jewellery Quarter. As leaders in the use of social media tools that encourage debate and the sharing of knowledge, we blog, share links and twitter the latest news about our work in housing design, sustainability and online consultation work... follow us here or get in touch.
Thanks to everyone who came to see us at the West Midlands Design Fair, we really enjoyed the event and hope you all enjoy your copy of the Axis Design newspaper.
We were joined by the guys from Slider Studio and we took the opportunity to show our innovative work in the online consultation field and YouCanPlan in Lozells. Our investigations into self-publishing tools were done with the help of bookleteer.com and newspaperclub.co.uk.
blurtonvision.co.uk needs your help… the new web site allows anyone who wants to take part in creating news about the neighbourhood to tell a story.
You could write something, take pictures or videos or even just use your mobile to send text messages. We’d like to hear from any residents in Blurton Farm, Newstead or Old Blurton who’d like to help us keep everyone in touch with the latest news and events from around the community.
Get in touch with Rob Annable at Axis Design architects if you’d like to take part…
2009 was a busy year for us here at Axis Design. So busy in fact that we neglected to tell you about it and haven’t updated the blog since the summer! Hopefully we’ve more than made up for it with the printing of the first Axis Design newspaper, covering numerous projects we’ve been involved with during the last couple of years.
You can pick yourself up a copy if you come and see us at the Designed Environment West Midlands Design Fair on the 25th February, where we’ll be teaming up with the guys at Slider Studio to talk about our consultation work using advanced digital tools. We’ve been using another example of an advanced digital tool to make the newspaper thanks to the new service launched by http://newspaperclub.co.uk.
Here are a few excerpts along with some images from the paper; you can also download a PDF copy of the full newspaper here: Axis Design newspaper
Birmingham Municipal Housing Trust
Axis Design Architects continue to play a key role in Birmingham’s latest housing developments. As one of the architects for the first two phases of the initiative to allow local authorities to build new homes, Axis Design have developed proposals for 5 sites across the city that will set the standard for the future of housing in Birmingham. Each scheme has been designed to deliver Code for Sustainable Homes level 4 and with the help of code assessors Brooks Devlin we have provided a renewable energy strategy that recommends the use of photovoltaic energy which could benefit from the recently announced Feed in Tarrif (more images available on our flickr page)
Today sees the official opening of the passive solar spaces we designed on behalf of Waterloo Housing for the latest phase of Brandwood End in Kings Heath. Thanks to funding assistance from Birmingham City Council we’ve been able to provide two storey glazed spaces to the rear of ten houses of mixed tenure. Designed as flexible spaces alongside the kitchen/dining room we believe that the life style benefits of sun spaces are equally as important as the energy/economic benefits.
Like our work in the refurbishment field, we’ll also be doing extensive post-occupancy monitoring of these properties over the next 3 years. We gave a short presentation at Ecobuild this year covering all these issues and the slides are available online.
This week we’ve been working on sketch proposals for a building for the Friends of Cotteridge Park resident group. Designed to be a robust part of the landscape that can be quickly/cheaply put up in stages, the project uses a combination of off-the-shelf products and earth sheltering. You can see full details at the project site: http://cotteridgepark.org.uk/shelter
Works is progressing well with phase 2 of the ecoterrace project and like the previous properties we’ll be taking part in some open days for the public. Come along and visit us!
107/109 London Road,
Chesterton,
Newcastle Under Lyme,
ST5 7JE
Open days:
4/6 Victoria Street,
Chesterton,
Newcastle Under Lyme,
ST5 7EW
Open days:
Following a busy month of award shortlists, we’re delighted to announce that ecoterrace has won Building magazine’s ‘99% Campaign Award for Refurbishment’.
The project was also a finalist in the CIH Housing Awards and Inside Housing magazine’s Sustainability Awards.
Queens Road was also a finalist in the Inside Housing magazine award, shortlisted under ‘Sustainable smaller social housing project of the year’
We can announce that our ecoterrace project has been highly commended at the recent Staffordshire Construction Awards. We’re looking forward to phase 2 and the delivery of the next four properties.
If you’d like to talk to us about our work and find out more about projects such as Queens Road or ecoterrace.co.uk, please come and visit us at the Climate Change Festival next week. We’ll be taking part in ‘Green Technology Day’ on Wednesday 4th June.
*Update:*
The event was a great success and we thoroughly enjoyed talking to everyone who visited the event. Here’s the video we prepared to show on the screens placed around the city’s square:
The first properties proposed as part of our Blurton masterplan document are nearing completion. Here’s an image of the bungalows at the centre of the courtyard.
