St. Paul’s Quarter is a vision for the major regeneration of long underutilised land within Birmingham’s world-famous Jewellery Quarter. The mixed use masterplan has recently been awarded planning consent, with its aim to sustainably deliver hundreds of new homes, new retail opportunities and affordable workspace in the heart of Birmingham, the historic “Workshop of the World”.
Macgregor Smith were appointed by Apsley House Capital and Galliard Homes to lead on the public realm design, curating a series of streets, squares and courtyards running through the development.
Drawing on threads of inspiration from the site’s context as a natural gateway connecting the City Centre to the Jewellery Quarter, its intriguing association with the famous Engineer James Watt, and the vibrant collection of architectural materials and typologies that contribute to the local townscape, we have crafted a dynamic new urban quarter that feels at home in its historic setting, yet unapologetically new and forward looking.
One of the principal aims for the public realm design was to use the newly created pedestrianised streets and squares to work as stepping stones with the two other significant areas of public realm in the Jewellery Quarter – St. Paul’s Square and Golden Square – to improve the overall pedestrian experience navigating through the Jewellery Quarter.
Also core to our work was a celebration of the connection the site has to James Watt. The famous inventor and engineer once lived in Harper’s Hill House at the northern end of the site. Whilst there he invented Watt’s Linkage, a mechanical device also known as parallel motion that converts rotary movement into linear movement.
We used the geometries of parallel motion as a strong feature within the design of the public realm to celebrate Watt within the scheme.
The framework of pedestrianised streets and squares that host the development will create a fantastic new destination within the Jewellery Quarter and a real asset for the city, but this is only half of the story. St. Paul’s Quarter will become a vibrant place to live with large internal courtyard spaces and roof terraces that are generously landscaped using biophilic design principles that contrast the industrial character and the grain of the public realm.
