Great Clowes Street

A 25-unit multi-residential regeneration scheme including the refurbishment of an existing Grade II Listed Building in the heart of Salford. Situated on one of the city's arterial roads, the scheme is situated on one of the major gateways to the city.

View from Great Clowes Street

A key driver behind the design is to challenge the notion of active frontage through testing various conditions and depths on the main elevation through different balcony arrangements. Using physical 3D printed detailed facade models to test different ideas.

3D Printed facade models

The models are part of the rigorous & iterative process the design team go through during the project's concept design stage to ensure several options have been explored.

3D Visualisation towards Great Clowes Street

During the design development of the scheme, the massing has been tested across the site to understand how we can achieve maximum density of the site, whilst remaining sympathetic to it's surrounding. The proposal therefore infills the southern boundary of the site to 'complete' the street frontage on the junction between Great Clowes Street and Kent Street.

Typical floor plan.

Using bolt on balconies as opposed to recessing these into the facade line, density has been maximised whilst restraining the building line from being too deep; allowing the building to sit alongside the existing. Furthermore, the proposed massing creates a central resident courtyard to the rear of the existing property and a new 'heart' to the site for the residents. In this space the main stair core sits to one side with external walkways in the sky providing access to the apartments. This also creates an opportunity to provide dual aspect views from the apartments.

Axonometric illustration of a typical 2 bedroom apartment.

The apartment layouts have been specially crafted to utilise the tight boundary of the site and its orientation; with each apartment capitalising on this ability to embrace dual aspect views to the front and back. This allows the main living spaces to capture different views and utilise morning and evening sunlight.

CGI visualisation: View from Kitchen to Living Space.

CGI visualisation: View towards Living Space.

"The tightly constrained site needed us to re-think the traditional ‘central corridor’ arrangement. By externalising the corridor and thinking of the new building form with two active frontages, we designed apartments which take advantage of views out to both sides of the building."

Ashley Taylor-Watts