Timber Wharf Housing

Glenn Howells Architects, Manchester, 2002

 

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Worsely Street, with its timber boardwalk fronting commercial duplexes 

Rod Dorling (website)     Download Original

  • Worsely Street, with its timber boardwalk fronting commercial duplexes    
  •     
  • The garden terraces rising towards The Box Works in the distance    
  • Lower level of one of the duplexes, one of four taken by urban splash for its office use. Other uses include retail and residential    
  • Some of the street vocabularly continues to the front doors    
  • Upper level in a duplex. A move upmarket but with an underlying consistency in the architecture    
  • The atrium, which continues the theme of transparency from the outside, with the same simple pallette    
  • Timber Wharf Housing    
  • Pew with a view to both north and south from the penthouses     
  • Staircase within a duplex    
  • Looking down into the stairwell from above    
  • AJ06-bs-interior stairwell    
  • Site-plan    
  • Ground floor plan    
  • First floor plan    
  • Second, third, forth and sixth floor plan    
  • Fifth floor plan    
  • Seventh floor plan    
  • Eighth floor plan    
  • One-bed floor plan    
  • Penthouse floor plan    
  • Two bed floor plan    
  • Cut-away isometric of precast balcony; Key part section through typical floor    
  • Detail section through fin wall, detail section through precast concrete, detail cross-section through fin wall, detail plan at fin wall and crosswall    

The transformation of a dilapidated warehouse district alongside the Bridgewater Canal in the centre of Manchester, into a hybrid mixed-use development with live/work community facilities

Winner of Urban Splash's architecture competition for a primarily residential scheme, Timber Wharf is an imposing nine-storey building.

Crosswall concrete construction and continuous balconies with storey-height glazing set up a simple layered rhythm, interrupted by a full-height circulation core. The palette is simple, basic – fair-faced concrete, metal, glass, stone and wood.

There are nine types among the 182 units. On the ground and first floor are live/work duplexes, some taken by Urban Splash, some by retailers, some being considered for residential use. These units open directly from the front of the building; given a little privacy on Worsley Street by a deep margin of external decking along the face of the building.

Above these units there are five floors, each with an identical mix of one bed and two-to-three bed units facing either north or south.

Data

  • Begun: Jun 2000
  • Completed: Jul 2002
  • Floor area: 25,650m2
  • Sector: Residential
  • Total cost: £14.8M
  • Tender date: May 2000
  • Procurement: Managment form of contract/work contract packages
  • Address: Burton Place, Timber Wharf, Manchester, M15 4LD, United Kingdom

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