Maurice Wilkins, DNA and Grand Central
Client Hammerson plc
Location Birmingham, UK
Status December 2020
HFM’s approach to the brief to enliven the mall experience was driven through the necessity to reconnect the prominent strand between the High Street and the New Street Mall, within the centre. Working with the specialist team at The Light Lab, HFM introduced a sinuous, dynamic and programmable lighting scheme, to better the placemaking identity of the space.
A part of Birmingham’s important scientific history can be attributed back to the discovery of the three-dimensional helical nature of DNA by Maurice Wilkins. It was these natural waveforms that HFM used as design precedent granting the space a new, and more defined character. The scheme is split in to two phases, where the first, provides an installation piece to signify a grand arrival from the high street, into the second, where a weaving skyscape forms the genetic fabric of the mall.
Team Dhruv Gulabchande
