Sustainable Head Office of Co-operative Group ’sliced egg’ in Manchester

3DReid is currently working on the £100 million low-energy, highly sustainable new headquarters for the Co-operative Group in Manchester city centre. Constructed by UK-based construction group BAM, the structure features 16 floors above ground that rises to a height of 72.5 metres. There are 12 distinct Co-operative business that are to be accommodated within the new headquarters building, with the current premises spread across 8 separate buildings and a total of 65 floors.



The building is designed around three cores set at the corners of an equilateral triangle with the office space arranged in blocks between each of them and an atrium filling much of the middle of the scheme. Convex curves along the main sides combined curving corners bend the outside of the building helping it move away from a precise triangular shape to something a bit more organic in appearance.




On the upper levels from floor nine, a large portion of the building has been sliced diagonally away as if it was an egg cut in half with a ring of light bronze cladding separating the inside from the outside. The advantage of this is that the upper floors reveal stepped terraces and aluminium framed glazing that shield the atrium from the elements providing copious amounts of outside space. Source 3dreid