Huckletree Ancoats Coworking Offices – Manchester

Firm
  • Client Huckletree Ancoats,
  • size 26,000 sqft
  • Year 2019
  • Location United Kingdom, Manchester, England,
  • Industry Coworking,
  • OBI created the design for the Huckletree Ancoats coworking offices located in Manchester, England.

    Huckletree Ancoats is a workspace bringing together a community of creatives, investors and entrepreneurs transforming the world in digital lifestyle, media and tech, including Depop, musclefood and Engine Group.

    It’s based in Manchester’s iconic Grade II listed Express Building, the former headquarters of the Daily Express newspaper which was repurposed into pioneering office space in 2019. Considered radical at the time of its unveiling in 1939, the Express Building was designed in the futuristic ‘streamline moderne’ style by the pioneering architect Sir Owen Williams.

    The refurbishment of the building, which was carried out by award-winning Manchester-based designers OBI, features lots of references to its origins as the home of the Daily Express.

    Huckletree Ancoats has taken a lot of inspiration from the art deco design of the building and from Memphis, the avant-garde art movement that was active at the time the building was constructed. Huckletree and OBi channelled that bold mentality, but with a more elevated palette featuring pastel pinks, yolk yellow and soft mint shades, plus signature graduating stripes.

    Members can attend gigs in the Live Lounge, channel creative thinking in the no-tech neon-lit meditation zone, The Imaginarium, and create content in the Podcast Studio.

    Design: OBI
    Photography: Holly Farrier