Project story · Manchester, United Kingdom
A civic building you can use before you enter it
Beside the Castlefield canal in Manchester, The Living Archive stacks warm stone, bronze fins and glass around a tall atrium, and gives its front steps to the public.
By byJOOM · The Living Archive · Civic and cultural
Stone volumes above a glazed ground
The building is a set of interlocking stone volumes with a bold cantilevered gallery floating above a glazed ground floor. The materials are warm stone, bronze fins and glass. From across the water the form reads at once: heavy, generous volumes held in the air by a transparent base, so that the building looks both solid and open.
Steps that double as seats
The most civic gesture is also the simplest. Broad stairs rise from the canal-side to the entrance, and they double as seating. In the pictures they run down to the water like the steps of a theatre, so the building can be used before anyone steps inside. Someone can sit, eat lunch or watch the canal on its front steps without ever being a visitor.
One tall, open atrium
Inside, everything is organised around a single tall, open atrium. A civic building for everyone, it holds galleries and a museum, a library and learning centre, workshops, performance and event spaces, and a café. Stairs sweep through the space in sculptural flights, and the large glazed facades fill the multi-level atrium with light. A visitor who comes for one thing is shown all the others on the way.
A stepped public terrace on the canal
The terrace on the canal is part of the building's programme, not an afterthought. It gives the neighbourhood a place on the water and links the entrance to the towpath. The stone is warm, the glass is generous, and the whole composition sits comfortably among the brick buildings along the water.
Robust stone, bronze and glass that gain character with age, and a flexible plan that can change its programme without changing its structure.
Materials that gain character
Robust stone, bronze and glass gain character with age. The design chooses them because they get better as they are used: stone mellows, bronze deepens in colour and glass keeps the sky. A building meant for everyone has to be able to stand a great deal of wear.
A flexible plan
The plan is flexible. It can change its programme without changing its structure, which means that galleries can become workshops and the café can grow without anyone needing to rebuild. For a cultural building that has to stay useful across changing seasons, that is the part of the design that matters most.
This article describes design intention. The images are design visualisations, not photographs of a finished building. See the Disclaimers.