A sustainable office building with a load bearing precast concrete façade.

The site is located within the First Street masterplan at the southern gateway to Manchester. The proposal provides circa 370,000 sqft of Grade A office workspace across two buildings.

The load-bearing façade celebrates the primary form of construction, reduces embodied carbon and acts as solar shading for the inset glazing. The precast concrete façade has a polished finish to the outer face to reflect light into the office floorplate.

At the crown of each building, the façades are folded to form external terraces. Internal winter gardens and terraces are provided on each floor to promote health and wellbeing with the workplace.

At street level, an urban glass house unifies the two buildings, creating a unique centre piece to the scheme.

The plot is arranged into two building to provide permeability across the site and improve the connectivity to the existing public spaces within the First Street masterplan.

At the base of each building, the glazing line peels away from the outer colonnade to create a generous shared entrance plaza which positively engages the street.

The façade articulation at ground level and setbacks to the upper floors create a tri partite order of a bottom, middle and top.

The proposal exemplifies our studio ethos, for simple, elegant design.

Inspired from the art of Kirigami, the rigourous orthogonal façade has developed from a mathematical grid, which has then been sculpted to create a well-proportioned form with a civic quality.