Alberts Shed, Castlefield, Manchester City Centre

Elle R Leisure

The Client’s brief was to carefully integrate a new, quality, contemporary restaurant building within the existing “Dukes 92” pub complex and the historic setting of the Castlefield Conservation Area. The aim was to provide a modern building, which not only enhances the area, but respects the quality of the buildings it sits alongside.

Strategically, the site is significant as it lies at the heart of Castlefield, and forms the last piece of the jigsaw in terms of the Dukes 92 development. The site is bounded by Castle Street, Merchant’s Warehouse, and the Rochdale Canal. The scheme involved the demolition of an existing brick tool shed and the construction of a new building: forming an extension to the existing facilities at Dukes 92. The new building incorporated a ground-floor restaurant and first-floor function suite. A new basement accommodated a toilet, back-of-house cellar and storage area.

The scale and proportion of the new building was intended to complement that of the existing stable block and annex without recourse to a more traditional building form. The new building is defined by a series of interlocking brick walls. Conceived as a series of planes these walls vary in height as a response to their particular setting. Three mono-pitch roof planes continue the theme of the existing adjacent roofs and give a sense of drama to the new function space within.

The elevational expression does not resort to pastiche; it offers a contemporary response through its detailing and choice of materials. The external walls are largely red brick with glazing set into anodised aluminium frames. A sustainable hardwood-clad ‘fin’ wall on the west elevation evolves into the main interior stair. The mono-pitch roofs are expressed as floating planes and finished with zinc; a contemporary allusion to the adjacent slate-covered roofs.