RIVER STREET TOWER.
First Street, Manchester
A 32-storey SimpsonHaugh-designed residential landmark in Manchester's First Street neighbourhood, distinguished by its striking weathered-steel corten rainscreen cladding, curtain walling and window systems.
River Street Tower is a 32-storey residential landmark in Manchester's First Street neighbourhood, designed by SimpsonHaugh. Delta Facades installed the striking weathered-steel corten rainscreen cladding that defines the building's identity on the Mancunian Way skyline, alongside the tower's curtain wall and window systems. The scheme pairs a slender high-rise with a stepped lower volume, and the corten facade — a challenging material to detail and hang consistently — has redefined Manchester's southern skyline. Every corten panel was hung on a bespoke ventilated carrier and installed with careful oxidation control so that the finished weathered patina reads uniformly across all 32 storeys.
Corten panels were pre-weathered to a consistent starting state before delivery so oxidation would progress uniformly on the building. The rainscreen was set out from a floor-by-floor digital grid tied back to the primary structure, and the tower was closed in from the bottom up in coordinated bands with the curtain wall and window systems.
- →Weathered-steel corten rainscreen — a challenging material to detail and hang consistently
- →32-storey installation on a constrained urban site alongside the Mancunian Way
- →Two-volume building — slender tower plus stepped lower massing — requiring coordinated setting-out
- →Controlling initial corten oxidation so the weathered patina reads uniformly across the tower
- — Weathered-steel corten rainscreen on bespoke ventilated carrier
- — Aluminium curtain walling
- — Aluminium residential windows
- — Non-combustible mineral wool insulation and cavity fire barriers
