Group office visit to see progress on site at our Southgate student residential project in Selly Oak, Birmingham.

Last night an group from the office enjoyed a night out at Roxy Lanes around the corner form our office in Digbeth. It was a great night with friendly competitive fun on the Pool table and Shuffleboards!

Our design for a part restoration, part new building project in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter received Full Planning Permission last week.

The project will provide ground floor street facing commercial space for designers, makers and potentially a small commercial gallery. The rear and upper storeys will have 9 generous residential dwellings; apartments and duplex's.

A courtyard will be formed at the rear of the site for residents and business users use, where the large timber truss's of the current roof will be retained as a feature of the space.

Great time attending UKREiiF by Joel Kempsey-Fagg. Catching up with contacts and meeting new, attending a number of interesting and social events and enjoying Leeds in the sun!

Last week, three D5'ers attended Open City's 'Young City Makers' programme training led by Nasra Abdullahi and Zafir Ameen.

"Young City Makers pairs primary schools with architecture practices, and gives students the opportunity to develop their collaboration and model-making skills, along with their understanding of their role in shaping their city." Open City

Training day photos by Manijeh Verghese

A group from the office enjoyed a night out to welcome three new recruits to the team with a few drinks in Digbeth, before heading to the Jewellery Quarter for a great meal at the Indian Brewery Snowhill.

Norwood Road, London Borough of Lambeth: Work is nearing completion on site with our project to convert and extend the upper floors of a former purpose built Woolworths store with a Listed white terracotta façade, into spacious and characterful dwellings.

London stock brick extends the side and rear second floor and pre-patinated copper shingles have been used to wrap the top floor. The terracotta will also be cleaned and renovated as part of the project.

New accommodation provided includes a mix of 1 and 2 bedroom apartments including 4 duplex’s with 2 benefitting from dramatic double height spaces that incorporate the existing double height windows in the Listed façade. All but one unit has private external space or winter gardens and all but 2 have dual aspect accommodation. A shared roof garden at third floor level will provide semi private external amenity space to all residents to enjoy.

Congratulations to Cadence Projects for their success in winning the Environmental Social Governance Award sponsored by D5 Architects at the Variety Midlands PROPS Awards 2025 held at the Grand Hotel, Birmingham.

Group office visit to see progress on site at Ariel House where we are converting a former Barclays Bank office building into 56 apartments.

Great to see our design for Legge Lane in the heart of the Jewellery Quarter is near complete.

D5 were involved in the redevelopment of the large site on Legge Lane from 2014-2019, obtaining Full Planning Permission for the constructed scheme with 100 dwellings in multiple blocks around 3 courtyards on the site which has a 2-storey change in level.

The contemporary contextual design was developed to reflect the historic location with a series of buildings referencing historic plot sizes.

Our client sold the site after we obtained Planning Approval and our design was then developed and constructed by the new owners.

Yesterday D5’s Santa gathered staff donations for charity.

Our charity Reverse Christmas Calendar this year has involved all D5 staff donating long life food provisions for a big donation on behalf of us all to Homeless One. Inspired by an 11 year old girl’s concern for a homeless person she passed on a street, since 2014 Homeless One has been serving hot meals to Birmingham’s homeless from their base in Digbeth. They now provide a hot meal 7 days a week by 20+ volunteers serving 650+ meals a week.

Please make contact with them if you would like to make your own donation or volunteer to help.

We're looking for driven and talented individuals to join our team to work on projects within our Aviation, Residential and Education sector work, from RIBA Stage 1-6.

We're looking for RIBA qualified Architects with 2+ years post qualification experience. Ideal applicants will have experience in multiple sectors and across RIBA works stages.

We also seek experienced Technologists with high quality technical design experience using Revit . Ideal applicants will also have experience of dealing with projects on site.

If this is this you, please get in touch with your CV and Portfolio to hello@d5architects.net

With our guests, great cakes made by all the staff and 'guess how many sweets in the jar' for donations, all made for a great morning and significant money raised for the charity. Thanks to all involved!

A great relaxed social day chatting about design, details and materials interspersed with comfortable helpings of food and drink!

The proposal dynamically cantilevers over the existing set back top floor with a design that complements the existing mid-century building below, while presenting its own identity through the use of pleated cladding creating light, shade and texture to the façade.

The roof extension also complements our new-build 15-storey Queensgate Square proposal on the right hand side, which obtained Full Planning Permission earlier in the year.

A new 2-storey teaching block providing 8 dual aspect classrooms. This project represents our ongoing relationship with the school, as our Viney Building extension courtyard infill project nears completion on site.

We're delighted to announce that we have received Full Planning and Listed Building Consent for our proposal to sensitively, restore, convert and extend this fascinating complex of Grade 2 Listed buildings with Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian and Mid-Century parts. The approved project will also add a new 4-storey building to the side of the listed buildings.

The total development will accommodate 26 dwellings including innovative duplex studios, 1 and 2 bedroom apartments. Furthermore, the original Georgian house and its Victorian rear ranges will be converted to a 12-bedroom Apart-Hotel.

 The scheme's composition embraces the site's boundaries while establishing focal points and landmarks that foster recognition, wayfinding and security. At its core, a residents' park becomes a community nexus, surrounded by diverse housing that enhances interaction, resulting in safe, inviting and activated social spaces. Additional green public spaces weave along the canal, connecting new and existing communities.

The scheme balances townhouses, apartments, and Canalside houses, with massing breaks, material changes and streetside social spaces that invite interaction between neighbours and enrich the urban rhythm.

Total site area: 1.1 Hectare
79 total Units split by
31 Townhouses
48 New Apartments
150m2 Commercial Space

His work explores the potential of interrelationships between industrial desalination processes and tidal salt marsh regeneration to supply decentralised, clean water to the village of North Ferriby, in the Humber estuary. The proposal takes a holistic approach to waste products by; reusing waste brine in a salt therapy spa to attract tourism and public engagement to our water infrastructure, and creating workshops that explore the potential of salt as a future building material.

The appeal was allowed and planning permission is granted for the demolition of existing buildings and construction of 83 residential apartments across two new development blocks, central amenity space including soft landscaping and planting, cycle storage, bin stores, plant store and enabling works at 334-340 High Street and 8-22 Harborne Park Road, Harborne, Birmingham