Facts about Milennium Point

I found this over at Birmingham101, so I want to share:

• The volume of Millennium Point is 185,000 m³, equal to
  • 100 Olympic size swimming pools.
  • 150 million Mars bars.
• It will take over 5,300 Mini’s (car) to fill the IMAX drum.
• The floor area can hold over 500 3 bed houses.
• The cladding will cover the sides of over 400 double decker buses.
• Enough block paving to build a path from Birmingham to Portsmouth.
• Steel used weighs over the equivalent of 20,000 Rolls Royce’s.
• Site area could house over 6 international football pitches or 11,000 Mini’s.
• If the cabling were laid out it would stretch from Birmingham to London.
• 3.5 acres of glass cladding.

University to Showcase £150m Eastside Plans

University to Showcase £150m Eastside Plans

•    Proposals for City Centre Campus to go on display
•    Major development of Birmingham’s Eastside
•    Chance for public to have their say

Birmingham City University’s ambitious plans for a flagship £150m campus are to go on display to the public.

The University is offering people the chance to look at the outline planning proposals for the Canal Street site, Eastside, which will be submitted to Birmingham City Council in June.

The location is a 4.17 acre brown field site on which it is proposed to build between 35,000 and 45,000 square metres of accommodation.

An exhibition of the proposals will be open at Millennium Point on Friday, May 30 from 12.30pm-5.30pm, and on Saturday, May 31 from 9.30am-12.30pm.

Mary Martin, Pro-Vice-Chancellor – Corporate Development, who is overseeing the development, said:

“The University’s ambition in 10 years’ time is to have achieved a national and international reputation for the excellence of our teaching, the exemplary nature of our engagement with business, the professions and the community and for the quality of our research.

“To achieve this ambition it is necessary to build upon existing achievements. We need to create new areas of excellence and invest in our infrastructure, facilities and business processes to meet the expectations of our students, customers and partners.

”We very much hope that anyone with an interest in the Eastside development will take the opportunity to examine what we’re proposing. Although it’s far too early to say exactly what the development will look like, the exhibition gives an insight into the sort of ideas that might form part of this exciting development.”

The objective of the development is to create new facilities to meet the requirements of the following faculties:

•    Faculty of Media and Performance Arts.
•    Faculty of Technology, Innovation & Development.
•    Birmingham Institute of Art and Design (BIAD).

Additionally, it is intended to create a concert hall, space for working with business, a Student Centre (to include library, learning resources and exhibition space), a food court and a retail centre. The first phase of the building is expected to open to students in September 2012.

Once completed, the University’s City Centre Campus will also encompass existing buildings including Millennium Point, an existing building providing approximately 14,500 square metres of accommodation currently occupied by the Technology Innovation Centre (tic) and the Birmingham School of Acting.

The development is complementary to the regeneration of this side of the city.

The new campus, together with the existing Millennium Point and developments including City Park Gate, Masshouse, Curzon Park and Ventureeast will progress to establish a new mixed use environment focused on learning and leisure.

Fire at Millennium Point

I thought I would spend some time and tell you about the groovy fire alarm system at Millennium Point.  It was installed by Solid State Security for those who want to know.

Ok, first, watch the video:

Some notes;  No ordinary alarm.  What you can hear is one of two annouced alarms.  This one, the most annoying as it can go on for almost ten minutes when it is a false alarm, is addressed by a female.  The students have heard it, however we have heard it so many times we tend not to care (for the female voice anyway).  If there is a real “situation” then the building is evacuation in stages.  The second of the messages is read by a male, and tells you to evacuate by the nearest fire exit.  If a real fire is happening in the building, the male will evacuate you straigt away in the area where the situation is present, and the women tells the rest of the building to wait.  The women will then change to a male (hehe oops), and then tells you to evacuate.  One simple reason – to avoid crushing at exits.  It’s very neat, very clear, very loud but very good.

This time it was a false alarm.  I have know plumes of smoke to come from HVAC before though.

EDIT:  As of 12:32 15th April, the alarm went again.

Update to Millennium Point floor numbering part III

They have the large signs on the lifts finished.  From our last post, they have repainted the number “0″ and is no different from what was there before, odd in my book.  However the lift themselves and parts of the signage need to be changed.

I have had to direct two groups of people today to “G0 Entrance to Thinktank” as stated on signs in the car park.  This is all a positive thing, I’m used to casually directing people around the building on the old number scheme that was almight confusing when you enter the building from the wrong/different floor.

The number changes have almost been complete at the TIC, rooms door numbers have changed, as well as large floor numbers.  The TIC just need to get the lifts sorted and various maps around the buiding.  I’ll keep you posted.

Update on Millennium Point floor numbers part II.

Update for today, a slight regression, the number ’0′ has disappeared.  Must have been too small.

Update on Millennium Point floor numbers

As of last night it looked like:

As of today:

They have also included better signage:

I hope those images explained enough to you.

Actors wanted for voice dubbing of “Kiki’s Delivery Service”

I’m asking a favour for any volunteer actors who would be willing to spend two to three hours in a studio re-recording the voice work for a four minute clip of Hayao Miyazaki’s “Kiki’s Delivery Service“, this is for a university project.  I need a male and female to play Tombo and Kiki.

Location of the studios is at Millennium Point in the city centre.  Date of recording will be the beginning of May.  See contact page for contact details.

See full blog post for script.

Update – Millennium Point floor numbers to change

Malcom Rhind-Tutt (yes a relation of Julian off the TV) has written to us:

“Millennium Point has been working for some time on re-developing the wayfinding and signage on this site. This includes internal floor designations and internal and external orientation and signage. The purpose has been to improve wayfinding throughout the site and reduce the confusion caused by the current system and floor numbering. The project is now complete and over the next few weeks we will see the changes implemented.

Floor Numbering

G2 will become level 0
G1 will become level 1
G0 will become level 2
L1 will become level 3
L2 will become level 4“

Wicked I had a scoop one day before it went public.  I had an inkling the news would come out this week.  

Millennium Point floor numbers to change

It has been in the pipeline for quite a while; they are finally changing the floor number at Millennium Point to be less confusing.  Out are G2, G1, G0, L1, L2, L3 (roof space) and L4 (top of IMAX which can be accessed by the lift next to where iBar used to be) and will change to floors 0-6 (edited as I originally wrote 1 to 7).

When this will happen is anyone’s guess with Millennium Point, a couple of years perhaps.