OPINION: Stadium plan shows off Brum’s growing swagger

If Birmingham’s sports quarter needed a huge statement to underline its grand ambitions, then this week, it certainly got it, writes Place Midlands editor, Mike Sheridan.

If you’ve been living under a particularly large rock for the past few days, you might have missed the release of the debut visuals for the project, which features a dozen towering chimney-style roof supports, intended to evoke the former brickworks which once stood on the Bordesley Green site.

Birmingham City’s planned 62,000-seat home will be the anchor project of a £2bn sports quarter for Birmingham, at the heart of some huge regeneration ambitions for both the city and the wider West Midlands region.

• READ MORE: Blues release first look at landmark stadium designs

Sport is now, of course, an extremely serious business – leveraged by entire regional authorities to drive huge regeneration schemes, none more ambitious than those unveiled in Birmingham this week.

In a big week for Birmingham-based sport regeneration projects, the Blues announcement came on the back of more under-the-radar plans across the city in Aston, where a gradual expansion of Villa Park is also driving smaller-scale regeneration ambitions around Witton and Aston railway stations.

Whatever you think of the design, instantly dubbed the “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory stadium” by the national press, it certainly sparks a conversation.

In a very unscientific poll conducted via my WhatsApp contacts, reaction to the designs varied between incredulous enthusiasm and derision.

“Looks a bit like Ironbridge Power Station,” offered one, while another compared it to an Ikea in Croydon.

I’ve never been to Croydon’s Ikea, but I’m guessing it’s not quite this ambitious.

Designs for a proposed new stadium for Birmingham City FC have been published. Credit: BCFC/MANICA/Heatherwick

Football stadium projects are not always the outriders for outstanding design, and Birmingham City, who some would describe as the perennial underdog in the city, could have been forgiven for playing it safe with this one.

That they decided upon such a swaggering design statement underlines the confidence backer Knighthead Capital has – in both the sports quarter project and the city itself.

It has identity. It has grit. It has, as the consultants would put it, a unique sense of place. In an era of sanitised arenas, that alone makes it pretty radical.

The retractable roof, movable pitch and the ability to host concerts, NFL games and global events all point to a project which is planning to make more than just a mark on the region’s aesthetics.

Heatherwick Studio, one of the architects charged with coming up with the stadium’s bold new vision, said they hated the idea of “sterile” stadiums, with designs which look like “spaceships that could have landed anywhere”.

“Ours grows from Birmingham itself — from its brickworks, its history of a thousand trades, and the craft at the core of its culture,” they said this week.

“Our goal is to capture the spirit of the city and play it back to Birmingham.”

It will be interesting to see what proportion of the concept designs make it through to the final scheme, but assuming it survives largely unscathed, those chimney towers will become an integral part of the city’s rising skyline.

And whether you love it or you hate it, it seems every Brummie (and plenty outside the city) has an opinion on Birmingham City’s 62,000-seat new home.

For a project intended to be a living, breathing expression of a city and its culture, that can only be a good thing.