MERCHANTS’ WAREHOUSE, MANCHESTER

Shaping visions, changing views

OculaTM SF84 has been used to make efficient office spaces within the iconic Merchants’ Warehouse built in 1825.

Blue Sky Design Interiors specified glazed partitioning with RAL 9011 black metal trim to sympathetically integrate with the Grade II listed brickwork, cast iron columns, timberbeams and floors. The OculaTM SF84 gives a contemporary feel to the building with a bold, banded system and flush glazed appearance.

The oldest surviving warehouse in the canal basin of Manchester, the partitioning system was installed to prevent acoustic attenuation between new rooms that now divide the 19th Century build. As the new Headquaters of the +Well Pharmacy, each office space is labelled with a manifestation named after famous physicians like Edward Jenner, who developedthe smallpox vaccine and penicillin developer, Earnst Boris Chain.

Along with office spaces, the renovation of the +Well HQ includes meeting rooms, seating areas, corridors, a kitchen, an entrancehall, computer clusters and a pharmacy for employees.

Built on the site of an original Romansettlement called Mancunium, the Merchants’ Warehouse was an important part of Manchester’s history before it was even built. Opened in 1763, the Castlefield area was an essential transportation hub supplying coal to a large area of the North West. The Merchants’ Warehouse was added to the industrial site to accommodate for the arrival of cotton from slave plantations in the West Indies andUSA. The building was specifically designed to receive and ship goods on both the Bridgewater and Rochdale canals.

Surviving air raid bombings in the 1940s and a devastating fire in the 1970s, Ian Simpson Architects saved the warehouse from demolition in the 1990s and restored the building using steel, glass and red sandstone. Now a conservation area in centralManchester, Merchants’ Warehouse has won numerous awards including a Civic Trust Award to celebrate its carefully designed restoration.

OculaTM glazed partitioning completes the contemporary renovation of a 200 year old monument

Project NameMerchants’ Warehouse, Manchester

Client+Well Pharmacy

ArchitectBlue Sky Design Interiors

Main ContractorADT Workplace

Sub-ContractorADT Workplace

SystemOculaTM SF84

Special RequirementsA banded glazed system with goodacoustic performance

Linear metres250m

LocationCastlefield, Manchester

Completion Date2015

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