3 Piccadilly Place was to be the building to greet your exit from Manchester Piccadilly station. It needed to make a statement: reflect a proud mercantile and civic history, but be modern. Surprise, engage, and challenge, but with some decorum. It had to invite the way into the heart of the metropolis. In brief: set the tone for the city.

The masterplan developed by Austin-Smith:Lord for the £125m development at Piccadilly Place called for a bridge providing direct access over the London Road from the station, and 3 Piccadilly Place, clad in copper, now awaits opposite, responding to the scale and colour of the adjacent fire station and university buildings, monolithic, strong. It arcs elegantly inwards, drawing the eye on and through into the space beyond, ushering you forward. The route into the city has begun.

Enter the piazza itself, and the solidity gives way to a sharp prow, a site-defining ‘beacon’. The copper cladding is both sober and bright, unique yet appropriate. This £28m, 13-storey building providing 19,000 m2 of net office space with a BREEAM Excellent rating is a landmark for all the right reasons, in complete harmony with its setting and function.

Ask anyone who alighted at Manchester Piccadilly before 2008, and they will tell you how it was. They would exit the station, and far from being lifted towards an inspiring vision or statement, their heads would drop to the view below: the London Road. Several lanes of traffic blocking the way into the city. Then they would begin the trek out of their way, forced to walk en masse to the nearest lights in a chaotic bid to get across the other side. Hardly an awe-inspiring welcome. The £125m commercial and residential development at Piccadilly Place, masterplan developed by Austin-Smith:Lord, changed all that.

The key to the masterplan lay in providing a pedestrian bridge over the road, and rethinking just how one should feel on leaving the station, and then again once in the piazza itself. The inclined approach from the station skirts a substantial waterwall which acts as the source of a shallow rill running the full length of the development, drawing you physically and visually into the piazza at the heart of the development. It is the interaction of the varied elements within the scheme that defines the experience: a complex of buildings, the natural wayfinding provided by sightlines and landmarks, the water features unifying spaces bisected by the tram route, the shops and restaurants. Everything interacts. But one building sets the tone from the start: 3 Piccadilly Place.

Now, on leaving the station, sitting over three levels of basement car parking, 3 Piccadilly Place provides something to look up to and be impressed by, rendering the road incidental. Its prime location opposite the station entrance set clear challenges. It had to set the tone for the city. This meant reflecting a proud mercantile and civic history, indicating a building of presence and stature, but it was also important to make a statement about modernity, too. So it had to surprise, engage, and challenge, not showily, but quite the opposite, with some sense of decorum and dignity. It also needed to show the way in physically, invite people forward.

This latter element is dealt with by its shape and massing. It arcs elegantly inwards, drawing the eye on and through into the space beyond, ushering you forward like a sweep of the arm. The space beyond beckons; the way forward is clear, the route into the city has begun.

The stature and presence we were seeking are also provided in the first instance by the shape and massing: imposing, yes, intimidating, no, as the building yields to the space beyond. Traditionally, the most important civic buildings use stone as an expression of authority, wealth and civic pride. There is a strong tradition of mercantile and commercial buildings in Manchester following the prosperity of the industrial revolution, buildings that aspire through the use of high quality materials to convey a message of quality, solidity and permanence.

Our choice of material links the past and the future, delivers a sense of progress and modernity whilst respecting and paying homage to the past: a copper-zinc alloy called Tecu Brass. Used in Germany and on the continent for years, it had not been used in this country as a large format cassette panel. Initially a bright copper colour, it patinates to a light brown colour over approximately 12 weeks, depending on the amount of rainfall. The patinated panels still retain a sheen and flashes of the copper colour depending on the angle of view, slant of sunlight crossing its surface and climatic conditions.

This material responds to the rhythm, scale and colour of the adjacent Fire Station and University buildings perfectly. It gives the building the monolithic appearance we were looking for, and the activity within the material provides a level of richness that sets the tone.

For those seeing it for the first time, the building has a surprise in store as one enters the piazza. The solidity of the building is cut back at a sharp angle, giving way to a sharp prow, a site-defining ‘beacon’. The visual impact is strong, a place-defining gateway, but it’s alive, too, as this prow is a natural place for meeting rooms or executive offices for the 19,000 m2 of net office space the building provides. Activity can be seen from without, creating a pleasing sense of engagement and interaction both ways.

The triangular hard landscape space at the centre of the entire development flows into the building at the main entrance. The eye is drawn from all points of the new piazza as the smooth glazed skin of the recessed full-height slot at the entrance contrasts with the ‘earthy’ tones of the copper zinc alloy or stone cladding the building elsewhere. The building enjoys a double-height reception that maintains the sense of scale as visitors step through its ‘skin’. Ground floor level retail and commercial spaces animate the new urban space at the heart of the development and provide facilities for building occupants as well as users from outside the site.

Another key achievement of 3 Piccadilly Place was its ability to deliver Argent Estates’ requirement to achieve a BREEAM Excellent rating. A key generator during the design process has been the desire to anticipate the next generation of carbon performance standards in the design of the building’s façade. Intelligent use of glazing, lighting controls and an efficient heating and cooling plant were the key factors in delivering this. Balancing orientation, view and solar aspect has led to the development of an architectural language that allows the progression from high levels of solid to high levels of glazing across a façade, as well as around the many faces of the building. The easterly façade therefore mediates between the high solidity of the southerly and the predominantly glazed ‘prow’ of the northerly façades. Having achieved this optimum balance of solid to glass, only a limited range of measures including intelligent lighting controls and efficient heating and cooling plant are required to achieve the BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating.

The building makes a clear, well-directed statement, but part of its achievement (and consistent with our role as masterplanner) is that it does not shout, instead playing its role to perfection amongst the new buildings of Piccadilly Place, and in relation to the historical ones close by and indeed beyond. This £28m,13-storey building is a landmark for all the right reasons, in complete harmony with its setting and function.