Affinity Living’s 34-storey Manchester tower rejected again 

I love tall buildings in the right area but the Port Street development is simply too tall, although I’m sure it will get through at some point with the SRF being set at 33 stories. My concern is every building is lower in height in the area and with it already built up it will stand alone looking oppressive (not to mention boring) overlooking everything else in the northern quarter

Port street – Too tall and boring for the area – agree with the other comment from Tomo, will probably get through but isn’t anything interesting as per from the usual architect suspects.

Store street – not sure how a gold tower ever fits in with the local aesthetic , this isn’t Dubai, change the colour to suit the local red brick city and you may be onto something – maybe a copper colour or even the rusted steel look. Really hope this doesn’t get through as it.

Fountain street – Great looking project – keeps traditional facade but also adds a nice modern feels to the actual office. Really like how it blends into the skyline with the glass choice colour (could just be the render)

I know Manchester has some fantastic new neighbourhoods and is starting to get some more interesting designs and but collectively it just isn’t good or bold enough. You only have to look down the road at Dyer St in Leeds to see what can be achieved. Whilst Manchester is a sprawling city with different/bigger issues there shouldn’t be a compromise on design and to be honest it deserves better. Manchester is an interesting and unique city – the new architecture should echo that. It doesn’t need to look hard, it has bags of culture to take inspiration from and is already blessed with tonnes of fantastic buildings. Industrial, Victorian, neogothic, ACID HOUSE- WHATEVER.
It has the filler, time for the killer. Grow a pair.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder of course but you have a different idea of quality to me if you think the architecture at Dyer Street is something we should aspire too. Architecture in Manchester knocks spots off anyhow else in the country apart from the centre of London. You need to keep off that acid people

Anonymous. There is somewhere in Leeds comparable to Deansgate Square? The Trinity Islands project? St John’s? St Michael’s?Mayfield? ID? Viadux? Victoria North etc?There must be another Leeds then? Manc-bashing is the new Northern sport. People should read the forums on Leeds Skyscapercity, it is just volumes of, “Why can’t we be more like Manchester?” Port Street would be something to get excited about anywhere else.

Dyer Street Leeds, give over.

There’s people commenting how the Port St. building is too tall!

Sorry but it’s not too tall but should be at least 40 storeys, and bigger the better. It’s big buildings that give aspiring cities and established cities the edge. A modern look and feel, a perception of having arrived at a great and big place, and that the city is going somewhere, punching above it’s weight.

It’s big developments that attract bigger developments.

The Store St. Gold tower is too small, should’ve been there twice the night at 30 storeys to give that gold facade the wow factor.

The commentators critical of the gold in favour of red brick, rusted steel, copper colour are just plain boring and visionless people. This type of architecture has been done to death in Manchester. It’s not unique. Then throw silly comments like ” this isn’t Dubai”. Yes it isn’t, but why can’t it be ambitious. Dubai was a fishing village 25 years ago.

I’m sick to the back teeth with NIMBY commentators and councillors in this country always vying to preserve stuff that absolutely has no value and holds back progress.

It might be the best outside of London but it needs to be more Mancunian and represent the city.

@ZiffZaff

I take on board your comments regarding your opinion. I am not against tall buildings but they need to look good otherwise by your metrics you would be happy with the tombstone student let building going up? Port street looks awful for its height, which is classic of boring SH architects.

I stand by my point of gold facade looking cheap and tacky, “the emporer’s new clothes” comes to mind when looking at this development. Even Dubai doesn’t have a gold tower. By all means invest but a gold tower isn’t going to make anyone think “Wow let’s invest here because a Gold tower shouts ambitious!”. My Dubai comment was more about it being all for show and being a very ostentatious and shallow place.

Think you should have a little look into architecture trends and understand why cities have planning recommendations.

Pretty sure Anonymous made a valid point. An aspiring global city shouldn’t settle for the ‘it’s the best outside of London’ card and new development certainly shouldn’t be at the expense of it’s character if it doesn’t need to.
It was only the other week that a potential occupier pointed out that some of the new offices are too generic in comparison to offices in Bristol.

Get it built, port street has been a surface car park for decades. I can’t believe the nimby mentality from people who themselves live in recent new build apts. Ancoats was a dumb once, they should be greatful the boom continues.

Ancoats and NQ are fantastic neighbourhoods that most other cities such as Leeds (in fact they tried recreating their own NQ including the name!!) and Birmingham would die for. However I completely agree that going forward the architecture should be top notch and nothing else. I don’t agree with the ‘build it anyway’ mentality in this location when there are tonnes of other locations throughout what is now becoming and relatively large and incredibly vibrant city centre. Manchester needs to start upping its game and letting the satellite towns adopt these sort of developments.