Scheme will deliver 1,205 rooms a stone’s throw from University College Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter Campus
Associated Architects has created proposals for two new student towers next to the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal in Birmingham city centre.
The scheme, for University College Birmingham, would deliver a total of 1,205 rooms in a 35-storey tower and a 15-storey sister building.
The structures are earmarked for the site of existing student accommodation at the university’s Cambrian Hall residences, which is about 200m from Mecanoo’s Library of Birmingham and roughly 400m from Victoria Square.
Cambrian Hall, which opened in 1970, sits on a 0.69ha site and has 247 bedspaces. However, it is not currently being used for accommodation. UCB’s other hall of residence is the 827-bed The Maltings base near Gas Street basin in the city.
A design and access statement supporting the Cambrian Wharf proposals said the university is keen to create a new “campus style” purpose-built residential offer in the heart of the city and noted the scheme would deliver a 10% uplift on the rooms at Cambrian Hall and The Maltings.
It said that UCBs main buildings are located around Summer Row in the Jewellery Quarter, which is very close to the Cambrian Wharf site but around 700m from The Maltings.
“The location of the majority of the rooms at The Maltings has a negative impact on student recruitment and needs to be addressed to enable growth,” the statement said. “The proposed scheme seeks to consolidate all UCB students onto the Cambrian Hall site, within walking distance of the University’s Jewellery Quarter Campus.”
As well as Associated Architects, the university’s project team for the development includes MGAC as project manager and QS, Couch Consulting Engineers as structural and civil engineer, and Plincke as landscape architect.
The planning application follows the recent submission of proposals for a 35-storey student accommodation tower in Leeds designed by local architect Enjoy Design.
Later this week, Manchester council is set to approve three major student accommodation schemes comprising a total of some 5,000 student rooms in the city.
Sheppard Robson’s plans for a 23-storey tower, Hawkins Brown and Simpson Haugh’s plans for three towers of 12, 14 and 29 storeys, and outline plans by Sheppard Robson for a 3,300-bed student accommodation campus have all been recommended for approval ahead of Thursday’s planning meeting.
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