Case Study

National Graphene Institute

Last year Manchester University's £61m National Graphene Institute opened, celebrating both the university's breakthrough in the isolation of graphene in 2004 and its determination to be at the forefront of the development of this revolutionary material. Although scientists knew that a potentially superthin, superstrong and superconductive material existed within graphite, nobody had managed to extract it until Sir Kostya Novoselov and Professor Andre Geim made the breakthrough, and were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.

Image Credit: Hufton+Crow

Jestico + Whiles was appointed in 2012 and worked with Novoselov to develop an environment for scientists and collaborators, culminating in a building that is pioneering in design, materials and programming. In the university's Science Quarter, the five-storey building has an inner skin of a proprietary composite cladding panel system that combines weather tightness with thermal insulation, all the while accommodating flush windows and other openings. A perforated stainless steel 'veil' wraps the building's shape, comprising black-mirror stainless-steel panels, perforated in a pattern that imitates graphene research equations.

Image Credit: Hufton+Crow

The building is formed of two isolated concrete structures to ensure minimal vibration. The main, 1,500 sq m dedicated cleanroom, is for large groups of scientists to carry out experiments and research without contamination. On the ground floor for optimum vibration control, it also allows scientists and their activities to be visible from the pavement. It is connected via a cleanroom lift (the only one in the UK), to a second cleanroom on the third floor. The building also contains laser, optical, metrology and chemical labs, offices, breakout spaces and a seminar room that opens on to a roof terrace with a bio-diverse garden. Some 35 global companies are partnering the university on graphene research.

Client: University of Manchester
Architect: Jestico + Whiles
Cost: £61m
Area: 7,825 sq m

Case Study

The Whitworth

An RIBA architecture competition saw McInnes Usher McKnight Architects (MUMA) selected to expand the city's venerable Whitworth Gallery into a 21st-century institution. Thanks to the initiatives of director Maria Balshaw, audiences had almost doubled between 2006 and 2008. But despite an ambitious exhibitions' and education programme, and a worldclass collection (including extensive textiles and wallpaper archives), the Victorian building and its Sixties' additions were no longer fit for purpose.

Image Credit: Alan Williams

An red-brick fortress, fenced off from surrounding parkland, MUMA's proposal was to establish a new relationship to the park and bring much-needed daylight into the interior circulation, recreation and education spaces. The railings were removed, and two new wings built into the landscape to frame a courtyard garden. One is a transparent and uplifting space, with a first-floor cafe extending into the treescape. The other is a more solid, urban block for the Landscape Gallery and Study Centre, as well as back-of-house facilities.

Image Credit: Alan Williams

A promenade wraps around the existing first-floor galleries, providing daylight and visual connections with the park. The lower ground-floor version also has a new promenade but with a 'cloistered' feel, generous windows and elegant wooden benches. Openings have been inserted into the existing building to boost daylighting and provide views. Combined with the restored Victorian, barrel-vaulted ceilings, this creates a lighter, more restorative and contemplative art environment. Materials used in the new extensions are largely inspired by the Sixties' John Bickerdike interior - brick, Purbeck stone, oak, ash, and terrazzo. These help unite the structure's three eras, as do the new layers and exterior patterning, which improve environmental performance and add interplays of light and shadow. A deserving Stirling Prize 2015 nominee.

Client: Whitworth Art Gallery; University of Manchester Estates
Architect McInnes Usher McKnight
Cost: £15m
Completed: 2015

Case Study

One St Peter's Square

It takes guts and style to come up with a commercial building to match the elegance and gravitas of Manchester's early 20th-century gems - the Victorian gothic Town Hall, its Thirties' extension and the neoclassical curves of the adjacent Portland stone library - but Glenn Howells Architects seems to have pulled it off. Sited opposite the library, across a newly re-landscaped square - whose Portland stone paving marches right up to the front entrance of One St Peter's Square - the colouring and rhythm of the building's pale reconstituted stone cladding and pillars echo these landmarks.

Mark Titchener's work in the lobby is made of several layers of acrylic mirrors, each layer bearing a patina inspired by details from the buildings around it. The quote comes from the Peterloo massacre.Image Credit: Edmund Sumner

Conceived by Argent at the start of the UK's recession, the scheme underwent lengthy consultations with Manchester Council, Historic England and many other interested parties, ultimately inspiring the council to commit £180m to the lavish piece of public realm decluttering and relandscaping and turn what had been a throbbing and noisy traffic island in front of the library into a new civic heart for the city, reserved for pedestrians, cyclists and trams.

The 14-storey building's front elevation beckons the visitor through wide-spaced, triple-height pillars into a public lobby, animated by a two-storey cafe and restaurant (called Fumo) inserted into the right-hand side of the double-height ground-floor envelope, with its own curving staircase. This, plus the generous seating in front of the restaurant and the wide sweep of the central staircase, gives the building the feeling of the lobby of an expensive hotel, as does the glittering Mark Titchener artwork that sits to the left of reception, with another Titchener gleaming at the end of the lift lobby.

Image Credit: Edmund Sumner

Every one of the floors above offers generous ceiling heights (2.8m), with all the services in the core to ensure flexibility of occupancy and maximum enjoyment of the panoramic views out over the city to the hills beyond.

The ratio of exterior pillars to glazing shifts from predominantly glazed with slender pillars at the north to a 50:50 balance with much wider pillars on the south elevation, in order to offer the right level of solar shading for each aspect. Says project architect Davinder Bansal: 'We used the fabric of the building to determine shading.

There are deep window reveals with chamfers cut to maximise light but also shade.'

As a final, civic gesture, the main road-facing side hugs the curve of the road in a gentle arc, giving plenty of space for pavement seating for Fumo's customers during the warmer months. It has been rated Grade A BREEAM Excellent.

Client: Argent
Architect: Glenn Howells Architects
Area: 26,000 sq m of office space
Public art consultant: InSite Art
Artist: Mark Titchener

Case Study

Town Hall Extension and Library

A transformation has taken place at the heart of two of Manchester's most iconic civic buildings - the Grade II listed Central Library, built in 1934, and the adjacent Town Hall Extension, completed 1938, both designed by E Vincent Harris. Thanks to the collaborative and individual efforts of SimpsonHaugh and Partners, and Ryder Architecture, these previously rather forbidding structures are now interconnected hubs for civic engagement.

The library's symmetrical circular structure, Ryder Architecture felt, had become disorientating with too few points of reference for the visitor.

Image Credit: Morley Von Sternberg

Enclosed staircases were uninviting and the library's main assets - the reading room and the books - were largely hidden from view. For the transformation, Ryder took out the central core of four storeys of book stacks. In this space a public reading room, and an archive search room has been created on the ground floor, lit through an opening to the lovingly refurbished Great Hall reading room above. New vertical circulation routes have been inserted, linking all levels.

Clear, contemporary staircases and scenic lifts make for a far more legible and accessible experience.

The grand ground-floor entrance - Shakespeare Hall - has been refurbished. It now leads into a large and welcoming contemporary gallery space, cafe and lounge area, with books and shelving moved to the rear.

This space now links seamlessly to a new area gouged out of the basement of the adjacent Town Hall Extension, which is now filled with the library's music and film catalogue.

Image Credit: Morley Von Sternberg

Manchester-based practice SimpsonHaugh was in charge of the Town Hall Extension refurbishment and argued successfully for the retention of this distinctive triangular building, rather than a relocation to some out-of-town shed. Designed as a link between the neoclassical library to its left and the ornate Gothic Revival architecture of Manchester Town Hall to its right, the interior has been completely relandscaped in order to achieve the densities the client was after - boosting occupants from 1,000 to 1,500.

This was largely achieved through demolishing corridors and creating large, open-plan floor plates throughout the six floors of office space within the eight-storey building.

These offices are now amply lit on either side through original windows whose full dimensions can once again be enjoyed thanks to the stripping out of layers of false ceilings. The services are all tidied away into the exposed ceiling grid.

The ground floor has been restored as a public space after years of being colonised by offices. Its dramatic, beautifully detailed Thirties' Rates Hall has become a generous customer-service space, with ample seating (in handsome vintage leather armchairs). All the key council services are available at booths on the ground floor, from housing to police enquiries.

And the front of the building - once an electricity showroom, is now a public media lounge that could almost double up as an Apple store.

A transparent link building has been inserted by SimpsonHaugh between the library and the Town Hall Extension. Made almost entirely of curved glass, its shape echoes the dimensions of the arches in both buildings either side. 'We wanted to interrupt the flow of the two buildings as little as possible,' says David Green, partner at SimpsonHaugh. The link boasts a rippling roof made of 30 tonnes of polished stainless steel, supported by the curved glass walls, and its mosaic floor is patterned with the same Tudor Manchester rose that is found in the Gothic Town Hall nearby

Central Library

Client: Manchester City Council
Architect: Ryder Architecture
Area: 12,500 sq m
Cost: £40m
Completed: March 2015

Town Hall Extension

Client: Manchester City Council
Architect: SimpsonHaugh and Partners
Area: 31,000 sq m
Cost: £58m
Completed: 2015