Manchesters Mediacity Unveiled

Manchesters Mediacity Unveiled

An outline planning application has been filed as the first phase of the new Media City development at Salford in Manchester at Quays Point.

The application refers to three proposed buildings, two of which will be towers and the third that will be the new BBC studios in Manchester to help accommodate them in their move north from the capital. It's being developed by Peel Media, a branch of the same developer that previously planned a cluster of towers for this area in 2005.

Building A will be 26 floors and 83.6 metres tall with an attached section that's 8 floors tall, within there will be 176 residential units 14,325 square metres of office space. Building B will be 22 floors and 66.5 metres tall containing 195 residential apartments plus 11,770 square metres of office space.

Occupying a corner position next to the canal and curving onto it copying the canal, the BBC building will contain 19,130 square metres of new office and broadcast space. The whole scheme has been designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects who have purposely gone out to try and create a coherent whole with what they have planned.

Their methods have included increasing the height of building C so that it will resemble the massing of the part 7 and 8 floor blocks more in terms of scale. The maximum height of block C was only 24 metres but this has been increased now to 37.3. Mirroring this in an attempt to get soar the tower heights have also gone up by the same amount creating more slender forms and avoiding the lumpen look that so many majority-office developments have.

Substantial use of curving is made on the lower-rise blocks, partly to try and compliment the circular planning layout that the area experiences. Building C is aped in appearance by the shorter sections of A and B in terms of material too with heavy of use aluminium curtain walling, recessed facades and roof-lines which are designed as distinct but consistent.

They are simplistically laid out to be more low key than other neighbouring buildings in the area that exhibit substantial flair such as the Imperial War Museum North, the look is definitely played down despite the prime location of building C in particular as the very centre of Mediacity.

In height terms the residential aspect is a noticeable component with building A being the tallest. This one is designed to asymmetrically taper with the top floors stepping back reducing the appearance of the top and creating a bit of a crown.

The residential chunk of building B cantilevers out dramatically over the office building in a similar manner to a recent Ian Simpson proposal an in inverse L. Unlike the curving slender building A, B is much squatter - the height is less than twice that of the length of it.

With a client like the BBC as the anchor tenant the development was never going to be the most imaginative around, they have a reputation for staid buildings as in Pacific Quay in Glasgow when as the national broadcaster they could perhaps have a requirement to champion the best in architecture as many state owned broadcasters on the continent do.

Completion of this first phase should be in 2011 if the BBC move is still go then and Peel can get their plans approved by local Salford City Council.

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