The Festival of Extreme Building will provide an opportunity for people to come together and dream. They will express themselves through the buildings and structures they create during their ‘dream time’ at the Festival.

It will create a visible exhibition platform for the design aspirations of the citizens of this city working together with and supported by professional practitioners.

The result will be a temporary parallel city that captures a snap shot of the cultural landscape of Birmingham in 2007.

This project evolved from a 2 year project funded by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to the value of £75,000. Sozo Collective, working with a range of partners, explored the use of a creative construction process to bring disused spaces in inner cities back to life. The 2007 Festival of Extreme Building will develop this activity on a plot of high value land donated by Land Securities.

The Festival has evolved from the following questions and aims:
What is the public realm?
Who defines public space?

We want to demonstrate how to utilise public space through existing networks of creative industries.

We will engage ordinary people within the festival; and give them the opportunity to realise their design dreams alongside artists and architects. The Festival of Xtreme Building can be taken to any city using the same process to highlight the magic that makes each city and the population within unique. Starting points for each festival; regeneration zones, connectivity to the city and community cohesion.