Stratos Tower, Manchester City Centre

Aeroworks Limited

The building is a 17 storey office tower with A3 retail at ground floor. It lies along Windmill Street facing onto the Plaza containing nationally significant buildings, the Manchester International Convention Centre and G-Mex. The Plaza was a weak, unoccupied, void space that poorly linked to the rest of the city’s public spaces. The space felt more like a back street rather than signifying its hierarchical civic importance within the city centre of Manchester.

Our urban strategy was that by providing a threshold along Windmill Street of relatively tall light coloured buildings it would provide better enclosure, better definition and more focus to the Plaza, along with increasing the density and A3 use, it would help draw life into the area.

The building faces onto the Plaza with a fully glazed elevation that cantilevers out at the second floor, continuing the cantilever line of the Free Trade Hall Hotel. In front of the glazing is a plane of solar-protecting brise soleil louvres. To its western corner, the building is articulated by a sandblasted limestone-clad stair shaft.

Architecturally the masonry is expressed as a solid monolithic volume, into which openings are carved and cut. This stands in contrast to the shimmering jewel-like quality of the south elevation glazing and brise soleil.

The development proposition was to create self-contained small floorplate office suites on each floor; a vertical 21st-century version of the crescents in Bath.