Building of the Year 2025: Ancoats Mobility Hub
Building of the Year 2025 Shortlist: Ancoats Mobility Hub
The Ancoats Mobility Hub represents a transformative approach to urban mobility and sustainable living. More than a car park, the Mobility Hub is the final chapter of two decades of the regeneration of Ancoats.
Manchester City Council’s Ancoats Mobility Hub was funded by Homes England, designed by Buttress Architects, delivered by Bowmer and Kirkland and is managed by APCOA.
The excellent collaborative nature of the working relationships with Bowmer+Kirkland and the City Council Client Team was instrumental to the successful completion of this unique project through many challenges.
Developed as part of a £40 million regeneration initiative, the Hub integrates parking, cycle storage, and last-mile delivery services to reduce car dependency and improve air quality.
This development stands as a blueprint for future mobility hubs, combining sustainability, technology, and community-focused design.
The low carbon construction incorporates hundreds of photovoltaic panels on its roof and living green walls, making the building one of the most environmentally friendly in the city - supporting Manchester’s target to become a zero carbon city by 2038.
The green wall scales the entire height of the eight storey building, with plants carefully chosen for their pollution-absorption, urban tolerance and year-round flowering. Just one square metre of wall planting can extract 2.3kg of carbon dioxide and produce 1.7kg of oxygen, while also filtering dangerous toxins and microparticles.
The mobility hub accelerates the move away from petrol and diesel vehicles, improves air quality and protects the environment. By bringing together parking in one place, the Hub will also ensure future developments are car-park free, and urban designers can focus on creating places for people to relax and enjoy.
At ground floor level, there are two commercial units. Popup Bikes, a cycle repair café, and Phase Five, an athletic performance centre, have moved into the Hub, connecting into the philosophy of green travel and health and wellbeing whilst activating the street frontage. They face a significant area of new public realm, which is accessible to pedestrians and cyclists with seating areas, planting and opportunities for outdoor café dining. This is also a key route connecting into the newly refurbished Ancoats Green.
Placemaking has been at the heart of this project to deliver a first-of-its-kind Mobility Hub sat within generous new public realm at Ancoats Green and seamlessly linked to the new residential developments in the final phase of the regeneration of Ancoats.
Join us for the Property and Construction Dinner on 5th March 2026 where we will be announcing the winner!
