This project was commissioned by Capital & Centric for Leonardo Hotels. It is a 275-bedroom hotel located on a pivotal corner site at the junction of Great Ancoats Street and Adair Street. It has been designed to engage with the new neighbouring buildings and to make a dramatic contribution to the streetscape of Manchester’s inner ring road.
The façade incorporates several projecting planters in an attempt to green the city. These planters are a reference to, and inspired by, the ‘negative space’ holes in the computer tape invented by Manchester’s very own Alan Turing, which were used to program the first computers. Consequently, despite the hotel’s abstract and apparent contextless design aesthetic, is deeply rooted in the history of Manchester.