Mall mauling

The programme for such a building is for somewide open retail spaces joined by lifts, stairs and malls – not exactly a difficult building type. Working with context to provide appropriate, honest external expression should come high on the design agenda.

Here we have a very expensively executed, meaningless skin that does precious little to help the ill-fated Arndale Centre and certainly has a big negative impact on Exchange Square. One-hundred-and-fifty million pounds of wasted opportunity!