The Bond

Digbeth, Birmingham

The Bond is a collection of four existing industrial buildings on the bank of the Digbeth Branch Canal in Birmingham. This creative reuse project refurbished and altered all four buildings, increasing the internal floor area and making them suitable for flexible workspaces for independent TV production and creative content developers.

The site has had a varied history including being used for the production of gas, as an ice store and a dairy warehouse. Three of the buildings were redeveloped in the early 1990s into offices and an events space and the fourth, the Retort House, was left as a shell with no roof covering and used for open air parking.

A mezzanine has now been added into the roof space of the four-storey Ice House and the covered external space has been enclosed to create even more usable space. For the Retort House we investigated thoroughly using sampling and Ground Penetrating Radar for identified voids. We worked closely with a ground investigation consultant and contractor to consider and find solutions for the contamination in the ground.

Maintaining the historic structure was an important objective fitting with our ‘less is more’ philosophy and the refurbished building is mainly exposed brick, steel and glass.