|
Chips Apartment
Building, New Islington
 Alongside the Ashton Canal, in New
Islington, you will find the Chips building.
It is known as Chips because the design team
decided the building looks like chips on a plate,
as the three storeys are connected on an angle and
"wiggle against each other."
 "The building is clad in a resin core
timber veneered rain screen system, with black
frame composite aluminium windows set into it.
This is the first time the system has been used in
the UK." As you can see the building is
decorated with words that pay homage to
Manchester's connection to the industrial
revolution.
        Today the area is in the process of redevelopment and it has the appearance of a building site but in earlier years it looked much different. The area beside the Ashton Canal was home to factories, warehouses and the terraced houses of the people who worked there. Below is my version of an 1886 map of the site that Chips occupies today.  The aerial
photograph below shows the same site in the
1950s. You can see the lock keeper's cottage
at "A". The red arrow points to the
approximate position of Chips.
 As part of the
development of New Islington new waterways have been
created. Below you can see the new section
that runs below Chips from the Ashton Canal to Mill
Street.
   ************************
Alsop Architects who designed Chips have also designed
21 Urban Barns which will "complement the waterside
location and green spaces of New Islington Millennium
Community. "These barns will be double height in space
with a glazed elevation and balconies. They will be
raised seven metres above the garden area on stilts.
Some of the barns will project over the new
waterway." As of February 2011 there is no sign of
work beginning on the barns.******************************
 If you think that
Alsop's design for Chips is rather unusual, you need to
see his spectacular Sharp Centre for Design created for
the Ontario College of Art in Toronto.
 ************************* - Images of Chips Under Construction - The Chips are now unwrapped and completed. Here are some images taken during the construction phase.   |