Project Aims
The West Midlands National Park Lab is rediscovering the vast, hidden landscape of the West Midlands that has been largely overlooked and undervalued for decades. Birmingham’s iconic number 11 bus route, otherwise known as the Outer Circle is a 26-mile circular tour of the city’s landscape, communities and history, that just happens to be a public transport facility.
We are working with students and partners including National Express and Transport for West Midlands to harness the route as a means of uncovering Birmingham’s often overlooked landscape and to re-imagine the bus service to address the challenges and opportunities faced by the UK’s second largest city.
Building on a recent Co.Lab studio module at BCU this project brings West Midlands National Park Lab research to new audiences by reclaiming and repositioning the phrase ‘know your place’ as a catalyst for communities and individuals to discover a sense of pride, belonging and curiosity in the everyday landscape of their city. In partnership with the Library of Birmingham, Stan’s Café theatre company, photographer Ming de Nasty and local historian Prof Carl Chinn, we are curating an exhibition of artifacts and narrative to illustrate significant sites around the bus route.
As part of the WMNP Lab, our students have developed proposals that will, by reconnecting people with their territory, help celebrate cultural identify, evoke pride and instil self-confidence across the region. The ambition for the Number 11 - in addition to being a vital public transport route - is for it to become a significant tourist attraction, a catalyst for local economic growth and to support the region’s diverse communities.
The 2024 Birmingham Outer Circle project, inspired by the extraordinary Norwegian Scenic Route, identifies stopping places and vantage points to strengthen travellers’ experience of the city’s landscape. Working in 2 teams, students have researched the challenges faced in Birmingham (such as health or education) and propose innovative ways to harness the bus route to help address these needs. Having developed a design concept for the whole route, each team has focused on one half of the circle, before zooming in to produce more detailed designs for one site of their choice.
Project Team
Funder
British Academy