Smiths Gardens

Build-to-Rent development brings urban regeneration to the heart of Birmingham

Delivering 550 new Build-to-Rent homes, this mixed-use development is part of the vibrant regeneration of the Digbeth Creative Quarter at the edge of central Birmingham. It consists of a 26-storey tower and lower-rise blocks of up to 10 storeys alongside extensive amenity space, an acre of private gardens as well as commercial and retail space for local businesses.

The scheme aims to cut embodied carbon of over 50%, partly through using lightweight volumetric modular units to form the residential floors. Walsh collaborated closely with the modular supplier to ensure that the requirements for differential movements could be accommodated within the concrete and modular interfaces. We have kept the amenity spaces at ground floor open and flexible by designing efficient transfer structures to support the modular frames above.

The site features a challenging sloping site, so we simplified the groundworks and the large central landscaped area contains a number of retaining structures, rain gardens and extensive SUDs systems.