Creating our community at Port Loop in Birmingham
It’s great to see so many residents settling into life at Port Loop in Birmingham. The lovely people already moved in are establishing lots of community-led initiatives; the Peddling Pantry serves up fruit and veg, while outdoor (COVID-safe) cinema nights are also taking place. And this month, the community’s been bolstered by some more great new additions.
We've welcomed the Floating Front Room; a physically distanced, but socially connected, outdoor cafe operating out of the Barge moored at Port Loop, offering produce from the city's best bakers and baristas to steel pans and a neighbourhood book share and the peddling pantry.
The Floating Front Room is the first phase of Civic Square – a bold re-imagining and building of physical public square, neighbourhood lab and participatory platform based at Port Loop. The brilliant and inspiring team behind the initiative are planning great things at Port Loop, across the wider neighbourhood and the Floating Front Room is just a taster (of creativity during COVID-19 restrictions) of what’s to come.
And as well as that, we've partnered with local community group MAIA to create an Art House at Port Loop. Housed within one of our Town House homes, the building has been named ‘YARD’ and will offer resident artists space as well as ground floor space for the community, with a regular timetable of COVID-safe events like yoga classes , artist workshops, roundtable discussions, cook outs, live music and poetry nights.
It’s all the perfect addition to a community in which we want people to Live Well by Design. We strongly believe that art and culture should be at the heart of a community. Having YARD and the Floating Front Room means homeowners have a series of fun and regular events on their doorstep. This is the beginning of some long-term collaborations which will see us invest in community-led art and initiatives for and by the local community.
Urban Splash Newsplash
Want to be kept in the loop about all things Urban Splash? Then sign up for Newsplash!
Our monthly news round-up with the latest and freshest news on property development, place-making, housing, architecture, events and careers sent straight to your inbox.