Appetite for contemporary living
It’s all in the name: three fat chips stacked on top of one another gave London-based star architect Will Alsop the inspiration for his new Chips building in New Islington, Manchester. The 100 metre long landmark houses a total of 142 one, two and three bedroom apartments. The ground floor of this bold development is exclusively used as commercial space. Expressive colours accentuate the slightly curved facade and give the complex an excitingly youthful look. The eye-catching headlines reproduced on the exterior walls hark back to the region’s industrial roots.
Just as chips are more appetising than plain boiled potatoes, the Chips project has a lot more allure than a run-of-the mill building. Already in the year 2000 architect Will Alsop won the Stirling Prize for his library building in Peckham, London, and has cultivated a reputation for bold and daring designs. His latest architectural delicacy is very much in tune with urban development in today’s Manchester, where bland industrial lines continue to make way for new and more inspired designs. By making Manchester a space for new and innovative urban and residential design, the planners want to make the city a desirable place to live for people across all income and age brackets.
The interior furnishings contribute to the unique character of the Chips complex. The appetite for bold design is catered to even in the bathrooms where the GROHE Essence faucets sitting atop the washbasins are confined to a single geometric shape, namely the cylinder. This penchant for clean and uncluttered lines is also reflected in the GROHE Tempesta handshowers. Thanks to the GROHE StarLight® treatment, these showers will never lose their shine and remain a point of attraction in the bathrooms for a long time to come. Other features, which may not be visible but are just as important, include the GROHE TurboStat® technology embedded in the Grohtherm 100 thermostat to protect users against scalding for complete peace of mind under the shower.