Arthur Landman – Project Manager

My role as Project Manager has been to make sure the project will run smoothly and ensure the decisions made by the team are coherent and suitable for the site. As researcher in to the local community background my role has been to make sure the site fits in with the surrounding area and community whilst also looking for viable tenants to take on the leases for this area.

Anna Sheldon – Illustration & Design

As lead on design and illustration, my main role has been to realise our ideas and plans for the site into a design that works for Digbeth. The majority of my time has been spent illustrating our design in SketchUp, which I ensured was to scale by inserting a map of the area from ProMap. In steering our ideas towards the final design, I often focused the team by bringing images and mood boards which helped us to decide on particular styles. Some of the inspiration images were from other projects that I’m aware of, whilst others were taken on a walk around the area. In particular, the windows on the residential units are inspired by the windows of nearby industrial factories. Most recently, my role has involved producing marketing material for the residential units that we are looking to sell off-plan.

Bea Nash – Construction Methods and Design

For my role, I undertook the task of researching specific construction methods used within a development site. I researched into the timescale of construction so we could estimate the correct timing needed for the phasing of demolition on the site. I discovered what materials would be seen as more sustainable and as a group we decided to implement this into our design; such as the use of long lasting materials. I took inspiration from various schemes such as ‘Berkeley Homes Urban Scheme’ as well as ‘Charlotte Rowe’s’ designs in Chelsea Flower Show for the sites design. We then incorporated these ideas and made them our own to be specific in what we wanted to achieve within our site.

Grace White – Planning & Research

I was assigned the task of reading through all the relevant planning policies including the NPPF, Birmingham Big City Plan, HS2 Masterplan and others. Having analysed these in great detail I proceeded to highlight the key issues which may affect our proposed development; some of the main concerning factors involved listed buildings, design, sustainability and transport. I also produced a map of transport links connecting the site to major hubs such as the new HS2 Station and The University of Birmingham.

Hugo Strutt – Finance

My role as the teams financial consultant was twofold. Firstly, I estimated the building costs for the various phases of the scheme, such as demolition of redundant buildings, refurbishment of listed buildings, and development of new buildings. Secondly, I had to calculate the earning potential of each aspect of the scheme. As we have included 40 houses with parking, as well as over 30 postgraduate flats and a 4 story “we-space” office block, I have been able to predict the returns we should expect from the whole site.