One Angel Square

One Angel Square in Manchester is the Co-operative Group’s new headquarters building, where more than 3,000 Co-op employees are co-located in one office for the first time.

The 15-storey building is a three-sided structure, with a fully glazed double skin façade that curves both horizontally and vertically around the building. There is a full-height atrium at the heart of the triangular building, its three sides formed from white-painted concrete balconies at each floor level. Behind the balconies there are large, column-free open-plan office floors.

Overview of environmental features

The double skinned facade and soaring open atrium are key to creating natural heating, cooling and lighting. The atrium, for example, floods the building’s interior with light, and the facade helps to minimise heating and cooling loads.

In summer louvres at the top of the facade will open to allow the warmed air trapped between its inner and outer skins to rise up and out of the building. In winter these louvres will close so the facade can form an insulated blanket around the building.

The building has its own source of heat and power generation through a CHP (combined heat and power) plant.


Other features include:

- Heat recovery from the IT systems that will also help to heat the building
- Low energy LED lighting and IT equipment and systems
- Greywater and rainwater recycling systems for toilet flushing and irrigation
- High efficiency passenger and service lifts.


The project team includes:

Client: The Co-operative Group
Architect: 3DReid
Project manager and QS: Gardiner & Theobald
Structural and M&E engineer: Buro Happold
Contractor: BAM