Designers SpaceInvader have completed a nearly 50,000 sq ft office interior for Virgin Media O2 across five floors of Island, the new, 10-storey, 100,000 sq ft, net zero carbon workspace on John Dalton Street in Manchester’s central business district.
With the new tenancy agreement signed in October 2024, SpaceInvader was appointed against stiff competition because of its ‘outstanding creativity and deep understanding of the culture of the city of Manchester’ according to Barbara Johnston, Senior Property Programmes and Project Manager at Virgin Media O2.
SpaceInvader kicked the project off with a series of co-creation workshops with the team based at the existing Virgin Media O2 Wythenshawe office in South Manchester. The workshops aimed to pinpoint design priorities, as well as discovering what the team liked or didn’t about their existing offices.
The new, Manchester office is now one of the core UK offices for Virgin Media O2 and occupies floors five to nine of Island, with the majority of the floorspace housing the operator’s customer centre team, with the Virgin Media O2 corporate teams, the event space, and a quiet library and wellbeing space on the eighth floor. The ninth is home to the catering offer and accompanying bookable working lounge facilities.
The client brief set out a number of clear priorities, including the reflection of the brand spirit and the design of a best-in-class office space, positioning Virgin Media O2 as an employer of choice in the region. The office environment needed to provide current and future employees with an environment that supported high performance work, enabled hybrid working and provided amenity and lifestyle services to serve employees’ daily lives.
Additional requirements included reflecting Mancunian culture and promoting the local community; achieving BREEAM Outstanding and WELL Platinum accreditations and embodying a focus on sustainability and wellness.
The final scheme is a highly vibrant and dynamic environment, with each floor inspired by a different aspect of Mancunian culture. It uses highly sustainable materials, furniture and fittings throughout with high consideration of user wellbeing and neurodiversity. Beyond providing workspace, the fit-out offers supportive amenities including catering, working lounges, wellbeing and quiet library space, as well as faith rooms and returning parent rooms. Very much on its way to achieving both BREEAM Outstanding and WELL Platinum standards, the project proves that performance and impact can be delivered through design intelligence and purpose-led construction – and look fantastic at the same time.
Design:
Design Team: John Williams, Sarah Dabbs, Bethany Gibson, James Lait, Emma Lakeland, Sam Hodgson, Wincey Lam, Jenny Crossland
Contractor: Overbury
Project Manager: CBRE Turner & Townsend Ltd
Photography:
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