One Angel Square is an office building in Manchester, England. Construction work began in 2010 and was completed in February 2013. The landmark building is the

head office Headquarters (commonly referred to as HQ) denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the top ...

of the Co-operative Group. Standing 72.5 metres (237.8 feet) tall, the building forms the centrepiece of the new £800 million

NOMA Noma, NoMa, or NOMA may refer to: Places * NoMa, the area North of Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C., US ** NoMa–Gallaudet U station, on Washington Metro * Noma, Florida, US * NOMA, Manchester, a redevelopment in England * Noma Distric ...

development in the Angel Meadows area of Manchester city centre. The building cost at least £105 million to construct and was sold on leaseback terms in 2013 for £142 million. One Angel Square is one of the most

sustainable Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livin ...

large buildings in Europe and is built to a BREEAM 'Outstanding' rating. It is powered by a biodiesel cogeneration plant using

rapeseed oil Close-up of canola blooms Canola flower Rapeseed oil is one of the oldest known vegetable oils. There are both edible and industrial forms produced from rapeseed, the seed of several cultivars of the plant family Brassicaceae. Historically, i ...

to provide electricity and heat. The structure makes use of natural resources, maximising passive solar gain for heat and using natural ventilation through its double-skin facade, adiabatic cooling, rainwater harvesting, greywater recycling and waste heat recycling. The building's distinctive form has been compared to a sliced

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

and a ship. Its design was announced by architects 3DReid in May 2009 and construction began in July 2010 with a projected completion date in March 2013. In December 2012, the scheme surpassed its pan-European sustainability aims and achieved a world-record BREEAM score of 95.32%. It is also an

energy-plus building An energy-plus building (also called: plus-energy house, efficiency-plus house) produces more energy from renewable energy sources, over the course of a year, than it imports from external sources. This is achieved using a combination of micro ...

, producing surplus energy and zero carbon emissions. The building has received numerous awards for its striking aesthetic and sustainability aims.

History

Exterior view of The Co-operative Group’s new head office

Background

The Co-operative Group Co-operative Group Limited, trading as Co-op, is a British consumer co-operative with a group of retail businesses including food retail, wholesale, e-pharmacy, insurance and legal services, and funeral care. The Co-operative Group has over ...

announced plans to move from its headquarters on Miller Street and Corporation Street to a new site in the

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tamesid ...

area in 2008. From 2008 to 2011, the group grew strongly according to CEO

Peter Marks Peter Vincent Marks CBE is an English businessman, and the former chief executive of the member-owned retailer The Co-operative Group. Career Marks became a management trainee in the food division of what became the Yorkshire Co-operatives. ...

, membership doubled to six million and revenue and profits also doubled. Takeovers of

Somerfield Somerfield (; originally Gateway) was a chain of small to medium-sized supermarkets operating in the United Kingdom. The company also previously owned the Kwik Save chain of discount food stores. The company was taken over by the Co-operative ...

and the Britainnia Building Society fuelled impetus for new head offices to accommodate the growth. In December 2008, the group announced it would remain in Manchester city centre and would regenerate land opposite its Miller Street base. The new building is close to

Angel Meadow St Michael's Flags and Angel Meadow Park is a public park in Manchester, England, to the immediate northeast of the city centre, on a slope between the River Irk and Rochdale Road. It occupies an area of acres (3 ha), and was once an ...

, the site of a 19th-century slum once described by

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' CIS Tower and the Co-operative Bank's Balloon Street headquarters are unaffected by the development. New Century Hall, home to Co-operative Food, the Dantzic,

Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

, Redfern and Federation Buildings will be vacated and renovated for

let Let or LET may refer to: Sports * Let serve, when the served object in certain racket sports hits the net and lands in the correct service court, such as; ** Let (badminton) ** Let (pickleball) ** Let (tennis) * Ladies European Tour, the ladi ...

. In 2011 the Co-operative announced the

project, north of Manchester city centre, to regenerate a 20-acre site with office, retail, residential and hotel space to encourage visitors from the city centre.

Manchester City Council Manchester City Council is the local authority for Manchester, a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. Manchester is the sixth largest city in England by population. Its city council is composed of 96 councillors, three f ...

contributed £20m to the project as an incentive for redevelopment. In December 2011, the Co-operative announced its new headquarters would be known as One Angel Square.

Construction

One Angel Square from CIS Tower, Oct 2012

Construction work began in July 2010 soon after planning permission was granted. The first task was installing the 539 pile foundations - each at an average depth of 18 metres. Work soon began on assembling the 3,300 tonnes of steel and 1,948

coffer A coffer (or coffering) in architecture is a series of sunken panels in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault. A series of these sunken panels was often used as decoration for a ceiling or a vault, al ...

ed concrete floor slabs which make up the structure of the building. BAM Construction was the main building contractor with cost management, project management and CDM coordination provided by Gardiner & Theobald. Specialist services were supplied by

Buro Happold Buro Happold (previously ''BuroHappold Engineering'') is a British professional services firm that provides engineering consultancy, design, planning, project management, and consulting services for buildings, infrastructure, and the environment ...

for

structural A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such as ...

and fire engineering and Austrian-based

Waagner Biro Waagner Biro is a Vienna-based group of companies formerly part of the same group which have developed into separately owned, independent companies operating in steel and mechanical engineering. Collectively, the companies have about 1000 employees ...

was commissioned to build the double skin façade. The structure was digitally modelled by BAM before commencing assembly and construction to improve safety and create a building schedule thus saving time during the construction process. More than 4,000 workers from over 90 companies were involved in the building's construction making it the largest building site outside South East England. The building was

topped out In building construction, topping out (sometimes referred to as topping off) is a builders' rite traditionally held when the last beam (or its equivalent) is placed atop a structure during its construction. Nowadays, the ceremony is often parlaye ...

in November 2011 and work began assembling the bronze-coloured diagonal panels of exterior façade. The panels were installed using roped access techniques. An estimated £17m of building materials out of the total £100m cost has been locally sourced reducing

embodied energy Embodied energy is the sum of all the energy required to produce any goods or services, considered as if that energy was incorporated or 'embodied' in the product itself. The concept can be useful in determining the effectiveness of energy-produ ...

and minimising environmental impact.

Mecanoo Mecanoo is an architecture firm based in Delft, Netherlands. Mecanoo was founded in 1984 by Francine Houben, Henk Döll, Roelf Steenhuis, Erick van Egeraat and Chris de Weijer. Foundation Houben, Döll and Steenhuis won a competition to desi ...

and Manchester-based Royal Haskoning designed the

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

in front of the building.

Inauguration and opening

Construction and fitting out was originally scheduled for completion in September 2012, however opening was postponed to 2013 due to delays in the fitting out process. In July 2012, the Co-operative Group announced One Angel Square was on the market for £150 million on

leaseback Leaseback, short for "sale-and-leaseback", is a financial transaction in which one sells an asset and leases it back for the long term; therefore, one continues to be able to use the asset but no longer owns it. The transaction is generally done fo ...

terms so it could gain capital to invest in Phase Two of the NOMA development. The leaseback sale attracted nine bids from six continents. In February 2013, the Group sold the building for £142 million to DWS and Gingko Tree Investments, an investment arm backed by the Chinese sovereign wealth fund.

Architecture

The Manchester division of 3DReid designed the building with a brief to create a green, landmark building for the city. The building's distinctive form was conceived in a notebook sketch by the lead architect for the building, Mike Hitchmough. The form was refined and developed, before being unveiled to the public in May 2009. The building's interior primarily consists of

open plan Open plan is the generic term used in architectural and interior design for any floor plan that makes use of large, open spaces and minimizes the use of small, enclosed rooms such as private offices. The term can also refer to landscaping of ...

space and can accommodate up to 4,000 staff. The building has 327,643 sq ft (30,439 sq m) of total space - approximately 29,000 sq ft (2,694 sq m) per floor. In keeping with the building's green credentials, employees will be encouraged to use

public transport Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typic ...

cycle Cycle, cycles, or cyclic may refer to: Anthropology and social sciences * Cyclic history, a theory of history * Cyclical theory, a theory of American political history associated with Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. * Social cycle, various cycles in soc ...

to work. Facilities have been created to encourage cycling by providing 105 cycle stands.

Form

The building has been nicknamed the 'sliced egg' because of its distinctive shape. A focal point is the diagonal slice which creates a nine-floor high atrium with its glass roof tilted towards the south, maximising daylight and passive solar gain. The structure has three internal concrete cores in the form of an

equilateral triangle In geometry, an equilateral triangle is a triangle in which all three sides have the same length. In the familiar Euclidean geometry, an equilateral triangle is also equiangular; that is, all three internal angles are also congruent to each oth ...

. Steel was utilised as the building main material; its strength allows for large column-free floors needed in an open plan building. The building's exterior has a double skin facade with a cavity between its inner windows and the outer glass panel structure. The double skin facade is for sustainability and aesthetic reasons - and allows for greater control of heating and ventilation, and accentuates the three curved corners of the building. To accentuate the form further, the exterior aluminium structure holding the glass panels in place has been

anodise Anodizing is an electrolytic passivation process used to increase the thickness of the natural oxide layer on the surface of metal parts. The process is called ''anodizing'' because the part to be treated forms the anode electrode of an electro ...

d in a bronze-coloured finish, so it will shimmer in the sun. The facade was originally to be powder-coated but the client decided to spend an additional £120,000 on a bronze anodised finish. This excess was justified as being cheaper over 50 years than using a powder-coated finish which would require maintenance. The building's form has been compared with The Ark and

City Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

Sustainability

The building is among the largest in Europe to have a BREEAM outstanding distinction as a result of its high, sustainable energy credentials. In December 2011, the building achieved the highest recorded BREEAM score, making it one of the most sustainable large buildings in the world. The open atrium faces south to collect heat from the sun, an example of

passive solar building design In passive solar building design, windows, walls, and floors are made to collect, store, reflect, and distribute solar energy, in the form of heat in the winter and reject solar heat in the summer. This is called passive solar design because, unl ...

. The diagonal slice is angled to the south to allow sunlight to pass into the upper floors and atrium. The sun emits

electromagnetic radiation In physics, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) consists of waves of the electromagnetic (EM) field, which propagate through space and carry momentum and electromagnetic radiant energy. It includes radio waves, microwaves, infrared, (visible ...

in the form of

ultraviolet Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength from 10 nm (with a corresponding frequency around 30 PHz) to 400 nm (750 THz), shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiati ...

, but changes to

infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from aroun ...

when it passes through glass. This creates heat inside the building and overheating will be countered by five stepped curved shades above the atrium which prevent sunlight overheating the building and stops glare. In winter, louvres atop the double-skin façade are closed to maintain the warm air generated in the building. In summer, the opposite occurs and louvres atop the double-skin façade open and consequently expel hot, rising air from the building to reduce overheating. The building's sustainable cogeneration heat and power plant uses bio-fuel and waste

cooking oil Cooking oil is plant, animal, or synthetic liquid fat used in frying, baking, and other types of cooking. It is also used in food preparation and flavoring not involving heat, such as salad dressings and bread dips, and may be called edible oi ...

. Its computer systems will recycle waste heat. The building has a used water recycling system and rainwater harvesting.

Thermal mass In building design, thermal mass is a property of the mass of a building that enables it to store heat and provide inertia against temperature fluctuations. It is sometimes known as the thermal flywheel effect. The thermal mass of heavy structura ...

materials which have a high density such as concrete are used to control temperature fluctuations.

Awards

One Angel Square is the only commercial building in the United Kingdom to achieve maximum ratings in energy and sustainability performance by the three main rating systems. It has BREEAM 'Outstanding' accreditation and an A-rated

Energy Performance Certificate Energy performance certificates (EPCs) are a rating scheme to summarise the energy efficiency of buildings. In the European Union, EPCs are regulated by the European Directive on the energy performance of buildings The Energy Performance of ...

and

Display Energy Certificate Display Energy Certificates (DECs) are records of the actual energy usage of public buildings, introduced by a number of European governments in response to the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, which all EU member states had to implemen ...

. The building has been awarded: *Considerate Constructors Scheme – 'Gold' award (2011) - Construction was rated 38.5 out of 40 by the Considerate Constructors Scheme, and achieved perfect scores in five of eight categories. *Builder & Engineer Awards (2011) **Sustainable Project of the Year **Architect of the Year – 3DReid *Green Apple Awards (2012) **Bronze Award *

Property Week ''Property Week'' is a UK business-to-business magazine which reports on the worldwide commercial and residential property market. It reports news, features and analysis and the latest information from the industry - from development opportunit ...

Awards (2012) **Sustainable Achievement Award *

World Architecture Festival The World Architecture Festival (WAF) is an annual festival and awards ceremony, one of the most prestigious events dedicated to the architecture and development industry. The first four events were held in Barcelona, from 2008 to 2011, at which p ...

(2012) – shortlist **'Future Project – Office' category * BREEAM Awards (2013) **Best Office Building * MIPIM Awards (2013) **Best Office and Business Development – Final four shortlist

References

External links

One Angel Square
- official website for One Angel Square
Creating a new Head Office that is good for everyone
- One Angel Square proposal from The Co-operative Group website
NOMA53
- official website for the wider development scheme around One Angel Square {{Co-operative Group Buildings and structures in Manchester The Co-operative Group Sustainable buildings and structures