The Cube
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Craig Holmes (website) Download Original
Cube shaped 19-storey tower, with four basement levels, containing retail units, office space, flats and a hotel, built as the final stage of the Birmingham’s Mailbox development
The building consists of three distinct elements; a glazed base that due to the change in level is seen as two stories on the canal façade and one on the street façade, a 15-storey aluminium clad cube, and a two-storey steel framed glazed structure that bursts from the top of the building.
The building’s roles are divided vertically - below ground a spa sits above three levels of automated underground car park - above this are three floors of retail/restaurant units, followed by five stories of office space, 244 residential apartments spread over eight and a half stories, a hotel that occupies a floor and a half - all topped with the city’s first rooftop restaurant.
The full-height open atrium which twists through the interior of the building opens out to the canal façade at the point the residential levels begin to create an angular rooftop space which crowns the building.
A bespoke unitised cladding system encases the cube form. Gold and bronze-coloured anodised aluminium panels of varying size and depth are combined with glass, creating an intricate design which is complemented by an elegant and decorative metallic fretwork screen across the open side of the courtyard.
Data
- Begun: Jul 2008
- Completed: Aug 2010
- Floor area: 42,000m2
- Sectors: Hotel, Residential, Office
- Total cost: £86M
- Procurement: Novated design and build
- Address: Wharfside Street, Birmingham, B1 1RN, United Kingdom
Professional Team 
- Architect: Make
- Client: Aruna Project
- Structural engineer: Buro Happold
- Acoustic consultant: Hoare Lea
- Services engineer: Hoare Lea
- Quantity surveyor: Faithful + Gould
- Main contractor: Aruna Project
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