One Angel Square is a high-rise office building in

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

, England. Construction work began in 2010 and was completed in February 2013. The landmark building is the head office of

the Co-operative Group The Co-operative Group Limited, trading as Co-op and formerly known as the Co-operative Wholesale Society, is a British consumer cooperative, consumer co-operative with a group of retail businesses, including grocery retail and wholesale, leg ...

. Standing tall, the building forms the centrepiece of the £800 million NOMA development in the Angel Meadows area of

Manchester city centre Manchester city centre is the central business district of Manchester, England, within the confines of Great Ancoats Street, A6042 Trinity Way, and A57(M) Mancunian Way, which collectively form an inner ring road. The City Centre ward had a ...

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

biodiesel Biodiesel is a renewable biofuel, a form of diesel fuel, derived from biological sources like vegetable oils, animal fats, or recycled greases, and consisting of long-chain fatty acid esters. It is typically made from fats. The roots of bi ...

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. Historica ...

to provide electricity and heat. The structure makes use of natural resources, maximising passive solar gain for heat and using

natural ventilation Passive ventilation is the process of supplying air to and removing air from an indoor space without using mechanical systems. It refers to the flow of external air to an indoor space as a result of pressure differences arising from natural for ...

through its double-skin façade, adiabatic cooling,

rainwater harvesting Rainwater harvesting (RWH) is the collection and storage of rain, rather than allowing it to run off. Rainwater is collected from a roof-like surface and redirected to a Rainwater tank, tank, cistern, deep pit (well, shaft, or borehole), Aquifer s ...

, greywater recycling and

waste heat Waste heat is heat that is produced by a machine, or other process that uses energy, as a byproduct of doing work. All such processes give off some waste heat as a fundamental result of the laws of thermodynamics. Waste heat has lower utility ...

recycling. The building's distinctive form has been compared to a sliced egg 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, producing surplus energy and zero carbon emissions. The building has received numerous awards for its striking aesthetic and sustainability aims.

History

Background

The Co-operative Group The Co-operative Group Limited, trading as Co-op and formerly known as the Co-operative Wholesale Society, is a British consumer cooperative, consumer co-operative with a group of retail businesses, including grocery retail and wholesale, leg ...

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 ceremonial county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Cheshire to the south, and Merseyside to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Manchester. ...

area in 2008. From 2008 to 2011, the group grew strongly according to CEO Peter Marks, membership doubled to six million and revenue and profits also doubled. Takeovers of Somerfield and the Britannia Building Society fuelled impetus for new head offices to accommodate the growth. In December 2008, the group announced it would remain in

and would regenerate land opposite its Miller Street base. The new building is close to Angel Meadow, the site of a 19th-century slum once described by

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.CIS Tower and the Co-operative Bank's Balloon Street headquarters were unaffected by the development. New Century Hall, home to Co-operative Food, the Dantzic,

Hanover Hanover ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Lower Saxony. Its population of 535,932 (2021) makes it the List of cities in Germany by population, 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-l ...

, Redfern and Federation Buildings were subsequently vacated and renovated for let. In 2011, the Co-operative announced the NOMA (North of Manchester city centre) project, to regenerate a site with office, retail, residential and hotel space to encourage visitors from the city centre.

Manchester City Council Manchester City Council is the Local government in England, local authority for the City status in the United Kingdom, city of Manchester in Greater Manchester, England. Manchester has had an elected local authority since 1838, which has been re ...

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

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 . Work soon began on assembling the 3,300 tonnes of

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

and 1,948 coffered 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 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 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 November 2011 and work began assembling the bronze-coloured diagonal panels of the exterior façade. The panels were installed using roped access techniques. An estimated £17m of building materials out of the total £100m cost was 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 were incorporated or 'embodied' in the product itself. The concept can help determine the effectiveness of energy-producing or ...

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 de ...

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 human-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 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 space and can accommodate up to 4,000 staff. The building has of total space - approximately per floor. In keeping with the building's green credentials, employees are encouraged to use

public transport Public transport (also known as public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) are forms of transport available to the general public. It typically uses a fixed schedule, route and charges a fixed fare. There is no rigid definition of whic ...

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

Form

The form of the building is based on a

beehive A beehive is an enclosed structure which houses honey bees, subgenus '' Apis.'' Honey bees live in the beehive, raising their young and producing honey as part of their seasonal cycle. Though the word ''beehive'' is used to describe the nest of ...

, a symbol long associated with the Co-operative movement and used on its buildings. It 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 An equilateral triangle is a triangle in which all three sides have the same length, and all three angles are equal. Because of these properties, the equilateral triangle is a regular polygon, occasionally known as the regular triangle. It is the ...

Steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

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 façade, with a cavity between its inner windows and the outer glass panel structure. The double skin façade 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 anodised in a bronze-coloured finish, so it will shimmer in the sun. The façade 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 municipal hall (in the Philippines) is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city o ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

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. 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) is a self-propagating wave of the electromagnetic field that carries momentum and radiant energy through space. It encompasses a broad spectrum, classified by frequency or its inverse, wavelength ...

in the form of

ultraviolet Ultraviolet radiation, also known as simply UV, is electromagnetic radiation of wavelengths of 10–400 nanometers, shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation is present in sunlight and constitutes about 10% of ...

, but changes to

infrared Infrared (IR; sometimes called infrared light) is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than that of visible light but shorter than microwaves. The infrared spectral band begins with the waves that are just longer than those ...

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 (also known as edible oil) is a plant or animal liquid fat used in frying, baking, and other types of cooking. Oil allows higher cooking temperatures than water, making cooking faster and more flavorful, while likewise distributing h ...

. Its computer systems will recycle

. The building has a used water recycling system and

Thermal mass In building design, thermal mass is a property of the matter of a building that requires a flow of heat in order for it to change temperature. Not all writers agree on what physical property of matter "thermal mass" describes. Most writers use ...

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 and Display Energy Certificate. 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 Awards (2012) **Sustainable Achievement Award *

World Architecture Festival The World Architecture Festival (WAF) is an Architecture, architectural and design event held annually and considered to be one of the most prestigious events dedicated to the architecture and development industries. It was founded by Paul Fin ...

(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