Building, designing and investing in Birmingham with Arup

Building Brum

We are excited to be joined by two of Arup’s Birmingham-based thought leaders Alison Kilby and James Watts, at their brand-new office at One Centenary Way, in Birmingham City Centre. In this episode we discuss all things Paradise Birmingham and the part both played in delivering one of the city's most ambitious office developments for MEPC and in turn, becoming its largest occupier. In the five years since the award-winning architects Howells made plans public for One Centenary Way, the project has taken centre stage with its strategic placement linking Centenary Square to the High Street.

We discuss Arup’s role in this journey, including how they supported the redefining of the building as the first intelligent building in Paradise, and how that enabled them to design an office in partnership with HOK Architects and Overbury shaped by Arup’s values of sustainable and inclusive design.
The Building Brum podcast is kindly sponsored reality capture and point cloud modelling specialists ScanTech Digital, Solus, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of commercial floor and wall tiles, APIC UK Limited West Bromwich based Architectural Glazing specialists and Sunbelt Rentals with over 1,500,000 items of equipment- they are the largest providers of equipment hire in the UK.
James Watts
James is the regeneration lead for Arup’s Midlands property team. He’s worked on a wide variety of projects across a number of different sectors from concept through to completion both in the UK and overseas. He has delivered cost effective solutions through quality design throughout the region and further afield, including across Arup’s new workspace at One Centenary Way and further visioning for Paradise and the city centre.

Alison Kilby
Alison is an associate director at Arup. Having started in the industry 14 years ago and, following a period working in Business Development, she returned as a Mechanical Engineer in 2014, and now works on a range of multi-disciplinary building designs, including collaborating with the University of Warwick and University of Birmingham on campus development, as well as with PwC on a range of exciting projects.