Whitworth Locke is a 160 room hotel with a bar, cafe, lounge and co-working space at the ground floor that we designed in Manchester, England. This adaptive reuse project was an addition, complete gut renovation and comprehensive fit out of a collection of three linked buildings on an island site in Central Manchester with elevations on Princess Street, Whitworth Street, and the Rochedale Canal.

The hotel is comprised of three linked blocks, Heritage assets all, that were built in separate phases: Central House, Dominion House and Johnson House. This commission had special resonance for us as the beautiful former textile warehouses and showroom were highly reminiscent of some of the earliest work we did designing interventions to 19th century masonry buildings — functional and stylistic contemporaries to these Mancunian structures — in our native New York City. The proportions, materials, textures and quality of light we inherited felt a bit like home and demanded to be exalted.

 Our alteration of the property was principally driven by the intent to preserve and celebrate the richness of the historic 19th Century building fabric whilst obliterating a poor previous alteration to the building from the 1980’s, all while creating a distinct new language commensurate to the new life and purpose we hoped to foster within. We paid special attention to the thresholds into the building and the dialogue between our interventions and the beauty of the Victorian blocks.