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PROJECT REPORT: COMMERCIAL & WORKPLACE ENVIRONMENTS
© Dan Hopkinson
The elevation design has been developed as a contemporary interpretation of the classic ‘base, middle and top’ proportions of the mid-rise 19th-century commercial buildings of the adjacent Whitworth Street Conservation Area
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ith staff beginning to return to city centre offices post- pandemic, one practice has seen the completion of a scheme in a key Manchester site which provides an attractive urban environment to welcome them, as well as the flexible futureproofing commercial building owners need. 1 & 2 Circle Square, designed by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios (FCBStudios) for developer Bruntwood, is a new workplace scheme in the heart of Oxford Road Corridor, designated as Manchester’s ‘innovation district.’ The scheme provides 400,000 ft2 of high quality office and coworking space at a cost of £75m, alongside 100,000 ft2 of retail and leisure, surrounding new green space.
The two workplace buildings, at 14 storeys and 17 storeys tall, form part of a new 2.4 million ft2 “neighbourhood,” being developed by a joint venture between Bruntwood and Select Property Group. The latter are developing two residential buildings for Vita, one student residence of 16 storeys, and a further PRS tenure tower rising 36 stories and creating a landmark in the area.
The new workplace is located on a former BBC site, surrounded by leading institutions in art, dance, culture, science and technology. The brief to the architects
WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK
© Dan Hopkinson
was for workspaces which would “help creative, digital and technology businesses to form, scale and grow.” The team worked to provide “fully flexible and adaptable” office space for 1 and 2 Circle Square, plus retail at ground and first floor. The buildings act as a ‘gateway’ to the Circle Square development, and face onto Oxford Road, with its ranks of substantial red brick and industrial heritage buildings. They also create a new “active” frontage thanks to the ground floor retail, as well as a clearly defined pedestrian route into the green space of Symphony Park. When FCBStudios was appointed by Bruntwood to take the office buildings (plus the central public space and two partially underground pavilions containing a gym and a Hello Oriental food court) to detailed design, they had already been working on the masterplan for many years. Architect Joya Zaman explains: “We were working on an outline planning application with landscape architects Planit IE, and tested various storey heights, and the mix. The quantums required by the client were then worked through, which established the distribution of volumes across the site. Despite the fact that separate teams across the architects’ offices in Manchester, London and Bath were all working on different aspects of the
ADF MARCH 2022
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