The Factory

Part of a wider masterplan for St John’s to deliver a cultural enterprise and production district, it will be a seismic catalyst for beneficial economic and social change. It will drive economic growth by retaining creative talent and clustering creative industry, digital and FE/HE partners around the facility to shift the arts ecology in England, producing new work that will enhance the UK’s cultural reputation and output.

St John’s is currently being developed by Allied London in partnership with Manchester City Council and the 15-acre site is based around the former ITV: Granada studios.

The building, designed by OMA, has flexibility at its core with independent performance spaces able to be joined for events hosting up to 7,000 guests. Charcoalblue are collaborating with OMA to design the new adaptable auditorium for large scale festival events and productions.

We are working with OMA on the design of the performance spaces utilising virtual reality to visualise the spaces & assist with the sightline analysis. All the technical systems are designed to be as flexible as possible to allow the users to create work with as few technical restrictions as possible, the warehouse alone has the capacity to hang 200 tons of scenery and technical equipment. The technical infrastructure is based around a system of fibre networks to maximise flexibility & data transfer rates whilst coping with the large distances involved in this venue.