Manchester New Square is a luxury residential development comprising three individually designed, 12, 14 and 15 storey buildings. The project revived a site left part-complete following the 2008 recession.

The collection of 351 apartments are located above a combined 9200 ft² of retail and restaurant spaces which surround a central courtyard and square. Additionally, a four-storey basement from the original construction has been converted into underground car parking with integrated mechanical ventilation and plant space provision.

Manchester New Square is located at the junction of Whitworth Street and Princess Street, two busy roads with entertainment and transport links nearby. A third elevation overlooks the Rochdale Canal and the vibrant bars of Canal Street.

A key challenge for the design team was therefore to ensure that noise intrusion to apartments was controlled. The team need to ensure that the building envelopes provide high sound insulation performances to meet strict internal noise level standards. The design achieves this by using:

• insulated heavy masonry facades with independent internal linings

• thick acoustic laminated glazing with optimised window sizes

• sound attenuated mechanical ventilation with heat recovery to provided outside air

Internally, apartments are separated by solid concrete floors and bathrooms are installed on acoustic isolation pads to reduce structure-borne noise transfer to apartments below. Twin leaf walls are specified between apartments to control airborne and structure-borne noise transfer.