The Southside Building, Birmingham
A workplace reinvented
Repositioning of a large multi-use building in the Southside area of Birmingham. The proposed fit-out includes office space, shared coworking lounge and breakout areas, an enlarged reception and café, and improved building facilities. The building acts as a keystone to the new Southside Square and acts as a catalyst for the further regeneration of the area.
Client
Paloma Capital
Year
Completion April 2022
Contractor
Willmott Dixon
Photographer
Nick Dearden
Improving the streetscape.
The original concrete façade of the tower had been reclad in 2010, but the ground and first floors remained undeveloped with a low overhanging canopy, a small, dated office reception, and a mix of low-quality shopfronts at street level.
The low-level concrete canopy was cut back and overclad to provide a contemporary black base for the building above. Taking reference from the glass block inserts in the pavement, a series of illuminated blocks provides additional lighting to the underside of the canopy, whilst a reflective stainless steel canopy marks the new entrance and enlarged reception for the office building.
We developed a design template for all the shopfronts that could be rolled out across all of the units. The shopfront glazing was increased in height, and the shopfront design standardised along the street frontage, providing attractive retail and F&B premises for local businesses.
Refurbishment and repositioning
Albany House was a prominent but underused 10-storey building in The Southside area of Birmingham. We were approached with the brief of repositioning and rebranding the building to provide a mix of small turn-key offices for start-up businesses, and shared workspaces for Birmingham’s creative industries.
The brief included cat-A fit-out of 20,000 sq ft of office space, cat-B fit-out of a shared coworking lounge and meeting room, refurbishment of the common parts, and a new reception and café on the ground floor.
Light touch, high impact
We worked closely with the client through a number of feasibility studies to identify areas where the budget could be best spent to achieve maximum impact. The strategy included a complete strip-out of the dated to maximise the space and expose the raw structure of the original building. The strategy for the common parts was to introduce light-touch interventions using cost-effective materials, which would have a high impact for low capital expenditure.
In the new upgraded common areas, Co&Co provided full interior design services, project managing a team of specialist consultants to deliver a coordinated design. This included AV, building branding, wayfinding, bespoke artwork design, furniture supply, bespoke joinery fabrication, and styling. The finished building has a unique identity which is borne out of, and represents the urban creative district in which the building is located, and the target demographic, which was an important part of the client brief.
