42
PROJECT REPORT: HERITAGE & HISTORIC
The concrete is tied back to an internal steel frame and carries the weight of the masonry cladding and the glazing, plus bolt-on balconies on two sides. “You see a lot of buildings in Manchester with external renders and cladding, but we felt the rhythm of the stack-bonded blue engineering brick would mirror the strong rhythm of the warehouses,” says shedkm’s Sidebotham.
The fact the steel frame is only carrying
the fl oor plates, not the facade, allowed for more slender steel sections on the interior, which are expressed as part of a general drive to express the structure and services, including precast concrete soffi ts, sprinklers, ventilation ductwork, and pipework.
“It took real work to coordinate the services to make it look clean, including the exposed conduits with lighting and smoke detection, sprinklers are even aligned with holes in the steel work,” says Sidebotham. The internal layout on each level of the Phoenix comprises six two-bed apartments arranged around the perimeter with two studio fl ats around the central core. Living spaces have full height glazing wherever possible to improve the quality of light within units. The single staircase confi guration has since been superseded by Building Safety Act regulations on fi re requiring two staircases.
C&C has admitted that Crusader Works is probably one of the most challenging projects it delivered, taking a lot longer to build than planned. The developer won planning consent in 2016 and the conversion began in earnest in early 2018. But delays ensued in 2019, after much of the timber was found to be unusable, and a year later the pandemic hit. Despite these setbacks, the fi nished scheme proved a knockout with the RIBA, which awarded it the RIBA North West Award 2024 and the RIBA North West Conservation Award.
The RIBA judges said the project is “exemplary, not only in the way the architects have conceived its layout and details, but also in terms of a developer’s vision to use the project as a catalyst for changing a wider, previously rundown urban area.” The Piccadilly East area of Manchester may no longer be hitting the enviable highs of the 19th Century ‘Cottonopolis,’ but Crusader Works is helping reinstate it as a much more vibrant and desirable part of town.
WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK ADF FEBRUARY 2025
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76
