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Civic Atmosphere

Part 2 Project 2020
Leigh Davies
Birmingham City University | UK
This project seeks to address the conditions found around the Axis Building in Birmingham. Through photography, model making and drawing, I have established that the Axis building creates a negative relationship to its context and poor connectivity within the wider urban framework. The ever-shifting landscape of Birmingham has resulted in change within the contextual setting of the Axis building, creating spaces that have not been addressed in an architectural sense and the requirement to realign the role of the Axis building within the urban framework.

To address these conditions, this project explores how an intervention in the lower storeys of the Axis building can contribute to creation of a civic space. Influence has been taken from Vienna, incorporating the ideas set out by Semper in which the layout of the building and its façade composition respond to the context to create a civic atmosphere.

The creation of a civic space has been explored through the inclusion of a public programme, enhancing the movement and connectivity though the site. A transitional space has been created to encourage public occupation of the site through the implementation of a colonnade and continuous soffit structure, enhancing the building’s existing modernist design notions


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2020
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