Aviva Studios | OMA - Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Project Overview

This landmark new cultural space in the heart of Manchester, UK, is one of the largest and most ambitious developments of its kind in Europe.

Aviva Studios is designed by world-leading practice Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), with OMA Partner, Ellen van Loon as lead architect, and is their first major public building in the UK. The development has been led by Manchester City Council, with backing from HM Government and Arts Council England. Factory International operates the cultural centre, as well as delivering the citywide Manchester International Festival every other year.

Location

Located in the centre of Manchester along the River Irwell, Aviva Studios forms part of the city’s major St. John’s Quarter redevelopment. The site is part of the Castlefield Conservation Area, which includes the Science and Industry Museum located on a globally significant industrial heritage site including the world’s oldest surviving passenger railway and world’s first railway goods warehouse. The redevelopment scheme will revive the entire site of the former Granada TV Studios, which is being transformed into a burgeoning city centre hub for culture, creativity and digital innovation.

Materials

Throughout the project’s interior and exterior, the focus of material selection reflects the industrial nature and heritage of the site. The combination of exposed steel connections, raw concrete, and façade systems typically used on industrial buildings and factories are brought together to create a new interpretation of the materials, while retaining industrial aesthetics.

Features

The design of the building is based around large, open, flexible spaces that will constantly change and reconfigure to meet the needs of the work created and presented in the building. Key elements include:

Warehouse: 33 metres wide, 64 metres long, 21 metres (clear) high, the Warehouse is the ultimate flexible performance space, with a theatre grid spanning the entirety of the area. At 21 metres tall, it is higher than four double decker buses stacked on top of each other and is the length of a Boeing 747 aeroplane. Two ‘Multiwall’ acoustic partitions enable the Warehouse to be configured as a single space or divided into two warehouse spaces. The partitions move as individual panels that are manually moved around a track.

170 strong points in the Warehouse can each hold one tonne, to allow sets, production rigs or performers to be suspended from the walls, and the standing-height grid has a working load of 200T, evenly distributed across it.

Truck Lift: On the West side of the North Warehouse are a pair of unique, purpose-built vehicle lifts that allow for two 50-ton articulated lorries, with trailers up to 40 feet long, to access the Warehouse.

Hall: Two foyers with bars, fixed balcony seating for 640, flexible stalls for multiple seated formats (for max 963), with a total seat count of 1603 and further options for standing configurations. Plus, a flexible orchestra pit with a capacity of 80 musicians.

The Warehouse and Hall can connect together to make a flat floor space or to create a large stage for the Hall (35 by 32 metre), with an 11-metre-high proscenium arch opening. The Proscenium steel shutters give sound separation between the two spaces so simultaneous events can take place in the Hall and Warehouse.

When the Hall is a separate space the seating/standing capacity and depth/width/height of the stage can both vary to suit the event.

Back of House Towers: Support including offices, a green room and dressing rooms (nine in total which can accommodate 95 people).

Social: This is a primary foyer facing Water Street serving both the Hall and the Warehouse. It is framed by eight Grade II listed railway arches at the south. There are three entrances into the space, City Square to the North, River Square to the West, and a direct link into the Science and Industry 

Museum (SIM) lower courtyard through a Grade II listed arch. When SIM is open people can seamlessly move between the spaces.

A 33-metre-long bar is split in two by the ‘mega pig’ which is a key part of the building’s structural engineering, holding up the proscenium arch above.

Additional multi-use foyers are on Level 2 and Level 3 of the building.

Outdoor spaces: New landscaped outdoor spaces provide visitors with a setting to enjoy the building and surrounding environment, including the River Irwell – an almost unique experience in central Manchester.

Environmental Sustainability

Factory International is on a committed path towards zero-carbon activity. Using operational data from 2024 as the benchmark, Factory International’s ambition is to become a zero-carbon emissions organisation by 2038 in line with Manchester’s targets.

Particular attention has been paid to the building fabric to create acoustically insulated spaces enveloped in a very high thermal mass which reduces the amount of energy required for heating, and high-performance glazing also reduces the amount of energy required for cooling. The fresh-air ventilation system closely monitors the air quality in the building to match the flow rate with the occupancy to minimise energy consumption and maintain comfort for each size of event. Waste heat is also recovered. The building is targeted to achieve a BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) assessment rating “Very Good”. A BREEAM rating is generated by measuring and grading projects against 103 different sustainability criteria covering the management of the project, materials and delivery.

Construction and Delivery

The development of Aviva Studios has been led by Manchester City Council in partnership with Factory International.
Architect: OMA
Technical Architects: Ryder Architecture Construction Partners: Laing O’Rourke Structure and Civil Engineer: Buro Happold Services Engineer: Buro Happold, BDP Acoustic Engineer: Level Acoustics
Fire Engineer: WSP
Theatre Consultants: Charcoalblue
Vertical Transportation: Pearson Consult Landscape Design: Planit.IE
IT: Turner & Townsend
Transport Planning: Vectos

Design Team

OMA Team: Ellen van Loon, Rem Koolhaas, Gary Owen, Carol Patterson, Jonathan Telkamp, Richard Hollington, Tanner Merkeley, Jacopo Bellina, Paloma Bule, Anita Ernődi, Marc-Achille Filhol, Alain Fouraux, Benedetta Gatti, Aris Gkitzias, Michael Hadjistyllis, Jason Houssein, Lisa Huang, Aleksandar Joksimovic, Hans Larsson, Thijs van der Lely, Emma Lubbers, Dirk van der Meij, Felix Morczinek, Tom Paling, Maria Aller Rey, Mario Rodriguez, Helena Rong, Won Ryu, Saskia Simon, Lukasz Skalec, Wael Sleiman, Iason Stathatos, Koen Stockbroekx, Shinji Takagi, Nicola Vitale, Federike Werner, Tom Xia, Yushang Zhang.