West Midlands National Park Lab
News & Events
WMNP Lab receive British Academy funding
A partnership between the West Midlands National Park Lab and Library of Birmingham archive, this project is framed around Birmingham’s locally iconic Number 11 bus route – a 26 mile circuit around the city’s diverse landscape and communities. Working with local historian Carl Chinn, Stan’s Café theatre company, the bus operator and transport authority, the project aims to help residents discover a new sense of pride, belonging and curiosity in the often-hidden landscape of their city. This grant from the British Academy will enable us to produce an exhibition of artefacts, narratives and street portraiture associated with the number 11 route to illustrate how landscape shapes cultural identities, forms the bedrock of society and the infrastructure upon which we depend for everything. Further details here
WMNP finalist in the Rosa Barba Casanovas International Landscape Architecture Prize.
As a Rosa Barba finalist, the WMNP Lab has been recognised as one of the best and most innovative practices in landscape architecture worldwide. The WMNP project will be exhibited at the 12th Barcelona International Landscape Biennial Symposium from 24-28 November, published in the Biennial catalogue and included in its online archive.
WMNP Lab Director, Prof Kathryn Moore said: “This is a great honour. It is brilliant to receive such prestigious, international acclaim for a new way of looking at landscape, following closely on the approval of UN Habitat to host an Urban Thinkers Campus in the region in the summer of 2024”.
Mapping the Tame Valley
Research by the WMNP Lab was showcased at the BCU annual degree show as part of a wider exhibition demonstrating work undertaken by the University’s faculty of Art Design and Media.
Our research examined the availability of data and its role in enabling insightful analysis of spatial relationships and landscape vision at scale. Whilst plenty of data is available in forms that can be investigated, we noted that recent trends in web-based embedded interactive maps make analysis at scale difficult.
As part of our recommendations, we have called for greater clarity and transparency in open-source data availability, and for further research into the use of large-scale analogue maps as tools of stakeholder engagement.
WMNP/Student Collaborative Research Showcased
Two projects showcasing the best of collaborative approaches between the West Midlands National Park and BCU students were selected for a recent exhibition.
The first, an in-depth project undertaken by Landscape Architecture MA students used innovative conceptual design processes to explore how United Nations Sustainable Development Goals could be harnessed to make the most of Birmingham’s recent announcement to redevelop the city centre.
The second project selected was a new collaboration between students from architecture, landscape architecture, interior architecture and design for living courses. Students from across the disciplines re-imagined Birmingham’s iconic number 11 (Outer Circle) bus route as celebration of the city’s landscape. Proposals included the re-foresting of Birmingham inspired by the ancient Forest of Arden, a culinary tour of the world visiting the dozens of cultures situated across the city, and Virtual and Augmented Reality tour that brings the history and culture of Birmingham alive as passengers travel around the route.
Top-Deck Landscape Tour
The West Midlands National Park Lab accompanied a group of Birmingham City University students ton a top-deck landscape tour tracing Birmingham’s famous number 11 Outer Circle route with social historian Carl Chinn. The study of the city is part of the School of Architecture and Landscape’s Collaborative Laboratory project that brings students from different design disciplines to work together.
Kathryn Moore said: “It’s an incredible way to kickstart the whole project, especially as not many of the students will have been all the way around on the 11 before and may not have seen all of Birmingham yet. Birmingham’s three rivers, the Cole, Tame and Rea, along with many of its brooks and tributaries, featured in the tour. Social historian Prof. Carl Chinn MBE Chinn said: “It’s important for students both from inside and outside Birmingham to see the city as it is. The number 11 is what us Brummies would call the Outer Circle, as the route encompasses nearly 27 miles of Birmingham’s landscapes, history, and peoples.” The number 11 bus route has played an essential role in the social and cultural fabric of the city since being established in 1923. Recognised as one of the longest urban bus routes in Europe, the 11 bus and its route has been immortalised in song and dance and documented in books and prose.
West Midlands National Park
2022 International Lecture
Watch world-renowned landscape architect KongJian Yu give this year’s International Lecture on Sponge Cities – a holistic, nature-based solution to protects and restore ecological infrastructure and make wise use of nature’s services for the benefit of the planet and the welfare of people.
West Midlands National Park
2022 Awards announced
Twelve projects have been chosen as winners of the 2022 West Midlands National Park Awards, as outstanding examples of reimagining landscapes. Eleven winners based in the West Midlands are joined by the first International WMNP Award winner from Bangladesh.
West Midlands National Park
2021 International Lecture
Prof Martha Schwartz, Harvard University Graduate School of Design presents SEQUESTROPLIS: Cities as Machines – creating Urban Forests to tackle the climate emergency.
Turning roads into linear forests by planting 300 trees in every six parking spaces has the potential to transform cities, capturing carbon, cleaning the air that we breathe, cooling our cities and drastically improving our quality of life.
West Midlands National Park
2021 Awards announced
Judged by an international jury, the inaugural winners demonstrate excellence in the way their submissions align with the WMNP ethos to create integrated approaches to the development, transformation and management of our physical and cultural resources. This is not about rewarding business as usual, but proposals that are influencing change, catalysing action and informing debate and that have flair, potential, and the ability to make a difference.
West Midlands Combined Authority
Presenting the West Midlands National Park to the WMCA Environment and Energy Board, October 2020.
Professor Kathryn Moore gave a presentation of the National Park for the West Midlands to the West Midlands Combined Authority Environment and Energy Board, highlighting the importance and need for the project.
West Midlands National Park
2019 SATURN Conference
The SATURN project comprises partners from Birmingham (UK), Trento (Italy) and Gothenburg (Sweden).
Launching the SATURN project, the overall aim of this
event is to help put quality of life, health, well-being
and climate change front and centre of the political
agenda as an economically resilient proposition for
future generations, delivering greater social and spatial
democracy and quality of life.
LAUNCH Event for the West Midlands National Park 2018
The West Midlands National Park was launched at BCU’s Landscape & Infrastructure conference and exhibition in 2018. Expert speakers from around the world set this project in its international context, anchoring it in political, academic, economic and cultural spheres as a vision to transform a region.
