The Mailbox
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Martine Hamilton Knight (website) Download Original
Redevelopment of a former Royal Mail parcel and letter sorting office in Birmingham city centre into a mixed use scheme with internal street
A major regeneration project providing a mix of uses within 150,000m2 of floor space, comprising two hotels, 16 restaurants and bars, 200 roof-level apartments, BBC Studios, offices, shops, a 1,000-space car park and more.
The idea of making the Mailbox a route rather than a destination is central to the scheme. A street has been cut straight through the building’s length, creating a coherent canal based circuit for pedestrians and tourists, which is open 24 hours a day.
Externally, the building is treated simply. The red rendered Mailbox Square elevation is the most radically remodelled, where graded steps address the changes in level in front of the building and provide piazzas and landscaped areas.
Internally, the street is broken into small-scale elements with different treatments reflecting the different uses. Detail is more sophisticated than in the exterior, the huge grid is resolved in more varied ways and the height controlled to echo the scale and character of a typical urban street.
Aiming to be a catalyst for the regeneration of a substantial city quarter, the scheme incorporates two public art projects, and part of the canal has been excavated with a new bridge and cone-shaped tower built to house a lift and staircase.
Data
- Begun: Aug 1999
- Completed: 2000
- Floor area: 102,292m2
- Sectors: Hotel, Office, Public realm, Residential, Retail
- Total cost: £38.1M
- Tender date: Aug 1998
- Procurement: JCT with Contractor's Design
- Address: The Mailbox, 5 Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RF, United Kingdom
Professional Team
- Architect: Associated Architects
- Project architects: Ian Standing, Matthew Goer
- Client: The Mailbox
- Structural engineer: Curtins Consulting Engineers
- Quantity surveyor: Faithful & Gould
- Client's agent: Faithful & Gould
- Landscape architect: Gillespies
- Main contractor: Carillion Building
- Contractor's architect: Weedon Partnership
- M&E Services: Couch Perry & Wilkes
- Traffic engineer: Arup
- Engineers Department: Birmingham City Council Transportation Department
- Artist: Thomas Heatherwick Studio
- Artist: Mark Pimlott
- Public Art Consultant: Modus Operandi
- Planner: Birmingham City Council Planning Division
- Building Consultant: Birmingham City Council Building Consultancy
- Lighting consultant: DPA Lighting Consultants
Suppliers
- Steel staircases: Peter Marshall
- Terracotta: Dane
- Curtain walling and windows: Dane
- Reconstituted stone: Trent Concrete