Lendlease scheme includes plots designed by Haworth Tompkins and dRMM
Prior & Partners have submitted plans for the first phase of the huge £1.9bn redevelopment of Smithfield market in central Birmingham.
The proposals, designed for Lendlease and located next to the Bullring shopping centre, are for the creation of a major mixed-use district of leisure and cultural attractions, retail markets, public squares, transport facilities and nearly 3,000 homes.
The masterplan was drawn up by Prior & Partners with individual elements designed by a roll call of high profile architects including Stirling Prize-winners Haworth Tompkins and dRMM, David Kohn Architects, RCKa and New York High Line architect James Corner Field Operations on landscape.
Other practices on the job include Intervention Architecture, Minesh Patel Architects and landscape architects Todd Longstaffe-Gowan and Fira.
Also on the project team is Aecom as QS, DP9 as planning consultant, Turner & Townsend as principal advisor to Lendlease, structural engineer Arup, transport and civil engineer WSP and heritage consultant Montagu Evans.
Birmingham city council, which owns around half of the 17.3ha site, appointed Lendlease as its development partner for the site in 2021 to help realise the vision set out in the council’s 2011 Big City Plan.
The site was the location of the medieval Birmingham manor house around which the city grew, and was later where the original Smithfield market was located before it was demolished in the 1960s.
Prior & Partners said the Lendlease scheme will aim to “reintegrate the origin-point of the city and reconnect the area with the city centre”.
A cluster of newer markets including the vacant Wholesale Markets site, the Bull Ring Open Market and the Rag Market will be redeveloped under the Lendlease plans, although the Bull Ring Indoor Market building will be retained refurbished.
The hybrid application seeks full permission for the initial four-plot phase of the masterplan including the David Kohn-designed Smithfield Market building, which will be the centrepiece of the district. It will sell goods and fresh food, with office, events and community space above.
> Also read: Emerging local practices land spots on £1.9bn Birmingham development
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Also in the first phase is a major mixed-use development by RCKa which will include new homes, a fitness garden, a pub and a wellness centre. A Haworth Tompkins-designed office building comprises the third plot, with the fourth taken up by a residential block designed by dRRM.
It is the second major Prior & Partners and Lendlease masterplan lodged in recent weeks following the pair’s submission of the £3.5bn Silvertown scheme in east London, which is also being developed by Homes England, the Greater London Authority and affordable housing firm The Guinness Partnership.
The design team for that 6,500-home scheme also includes dRMM along with AHMM, Pollard Thomas Edwards and Maccreanor Lavington.
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