Jasper Sanders presents his keynote lecture on Manchester’s Canary Wharf at Facilities & Management Journal Live. Listen to Jasper’s presentation in full.

Really, it's all about the asset management and facilities management. Like I say, the suites range from around 1,000 square feet to the largest being 22,000 square feet, with most averaging between 4,000 and 10,000 square feet. So, there's an expectation here that the tenants don't have that kind of in-house management to be able to do their own fit-outs. This is really about tenant fit-outs. This is what existed, by the way.

This is what we arrived at in 2019, very much an orange brand which was monolithic across the entire site. The orange was a sort of brand identity signifier and really a marketing exercise, which was primarily an online thing. It was an architectural response to what should really have been a people response.

So, in the refurbishment of all of this in 2019, we were keen to make it much more relevant to what people expect when they come to work. I mean, what's the sofa doing? It's not an airport. So, we've transformed that space. We've taken out the very insistent orange, put in new settings and created a much better front of house.

Now, the important thing with all of these refurbishments is that the client has only got so much money. It's extremely expensive to fund these projects. You can only spend the money once, which is one of the client's catchphrases. So, you've got to be extremely careful with how you go about spending the client's money.

For us as interior designers, we don't have a house style. We're not bringing with us an idea of what we want to do. What we're trying to do is bring a sense of humanity to some of these entrance areas. The first thing we did across this campus was refurbish the various entrance receptions.

We were trying to get that arrival experience much more in line with what was expected across the whole Manchester scene. We're not competing with Manchester city centre, but we're really trying to make these buildings much more successful.

So, we started at Building 8. Somebody had already done a design for this. I think the contractors and interior designer had put forward some proposals. Like I say, I've known this client since 2002, so quite a long time. He said to me, "What do you think of the proposals?" And I said, "Well, some of the ingredients are okay, but others are not, and the recipe is a bit off."

We took this back to the office. We didn't change a great deal; we swapped out some things and improved some of the finishes.

This was in 2019. I think it still looks okay now. It's never going to win the Stirling Prize, but I think it's still working well today. The reception desk is the same underneath. We've cloaked it in, repainted it (the space) and put new lighting in. Lighting is super important, as are places for people to work and meet. It's design that's not self-conscious but just works really well for the tenant.

The next one we moved on to was Building 1. This was actually the last of all the buildings to be built. Building 3, which is now called ICE, came first, followed by Building 7, then Building 5, Building 8 and Building 1. So, across the campus, we've got these seven buildings, and we're trying to spend as little as possible.

Here we're looking at everything again. I'm not a fan of this particular seat, or quite a lot of things, actually. I don't particularly like the ceilings. The doors are grey. If I were choosing this from the start, I wouldn't design it like this, and I probably wouldn't design the balustrade as it is either.

(However), these are all good, solid pieces of design. The buildings have stood the test of time; they're really well put together. My job as a designer is to refurbish them and bring them back to life. It's really important that people use these buildings because it's the best form of sustainability. If we can bring buildings back to life, we can bring prosperity and reduce carbon.

My mission in life is to see whether we can refurbish all the buildings across the world and see if we just don't need any new ones. I'm sure we've got enough already, if only we used the stock we've got much better. So, that's our mission at JS+P).

We then we then transform it into this. The existing floors, columns and ceilings are all the same. We've tweaked the lighting to improve the EPC ratings of the buildings.

For Building 1, we've taken it from an EPC D down to an A. We've got a column VCF, so we're improving the energy ratings of the buildings. Our mission here is always to try to have the smallest possible skip (when demolishing from site). So that we are throwing out the least amount possible. We've clad the walls, overclad the existing reception desk and kept the existing floors and ceilings. There's not a lot that we've actually done. It's like being a forensic analyst. It's a game of chess, isn't it? We've got to try to win the game with the least amount of moves.

We did spend quite a lot of money on a light fitting which changes colour. If you know Manchester well, it rains a lot, so we've tried to bring a bit of sunshine into the space, while also accepting that sometimes it's cloudy and rainy. I understand from the receptionist that she sometimes feels cold in here, and I don't know why. Well, it's probably because of our light fittings, which have impacted how she feels!

I think we've made some good improvements there. Then we moved on to Building 5. Much of the same, and the idea is that each of the buildings has its own character. Again, it's not a copycat, stamp-out design. This is what existed: a strange, large orange portico made from MDF, with not very nice materials and poor lighting.

We've redressed it, keeping the floors and ceilings. It was perhaps a £100,000 lightweight fit-out. This is a 13-storey building, so it's a big building. The moss wall was already there, so we've simply clad around it. Let's not throw anything away that we don't need to.

When we’ve moved on from Buildings 8, 1 and 5, we then went into the suites themselves. This is enormously expensive for a client. There's a recognition that businesses haven't got the time or resources to fit out their own suites.

If you're an enormous business, such as a big law firm, you probably have that resource in-house. If you're a tiny firm, you can probably just do it yourself and wing it. But those mid-sized SMEs really need to move into something that's oven-ready. This is enormously expensive for our client. You can spend your money once, and they have to fund it ahead of time.

There's a lot of pressure on their money, particularly with the heat metering and EPC ratings that also come into this. This is what we're turning up to: very uncool and unloved. Anyone walking in here is never going to want to rent one of these. And then we transform it into something like this.

Again, the existing ceilings remain, with improved lighting and reduced energy use. We're trying to throw as little away as possible and bring activity into the space. This is speculative, but the space is now taken. They all go in fitted out, and they all get rented because someone can imagine working in here.

These booths were existing but had ghastly colours, so we had them wrapped and refurbished. Again, it's not earth-shattering, but it's a good office, really well put together. Lovely finishes, inoffensive design that works really well, with great places to meet, collaborate, work independently or work together.

There's a lovely central space. Across what I'm showing you here, it's not just one suite; I'm showing you multiple suites. They all have their own flavour. We've developed a pattern that we can repeat between ourselves, the contractor and the supply chain. We know the components, they're already costed, we know how to manage them and we know what works.

Once we've done that and got those suites up and running, they're all ongoing. The next challenge is how we bring together seven buildings and create a sense of community and place.

Some years back, around 20 years ago, there was an idea for a wayfinding exercise. It was a little bit like EasyJet (-esk). They were all generally orange, apart from the blue one, which was painted blue more recently. These totems were wayfinding markers, and the issue was that they were highly successful at the beginning. At the outset, they were extremely good and put Exchange Quay on the map. But over time, I think people become a little bit immune to them, and they don't necessarily help create a sense of place (over time).

So, we've approached this differently to bring some colour and experience to them. The idea is to create a garden campus where we can bring in a level of art. What we wanted to do was slow the experience down. Rather than having a totem that you see, which is orange as you walk around it and still orange as you walk underneath it, we liked the idea of creating an experience and a discovery that was a little bit slower and more experiential.

We wanted to create a connection to nature, with the reflective buildings allowing some of this colour to be reflected in them. The smoking shelters have been turned into collaboration hubs, bringing colour and a great sense of vibrancy to the campus.

The idea was not to remove the totems or throw anything away, but to give them a light touch using 26 colours. It was slightly annoying for the painter, but whenever any face gets scratched or damaged, it can easily be repaired. So, it's a low-cost, low-impact solution (that is economical to maintain and refresh over time).

Of course, we can always keep it going. It's a bit like Del Boy's lounge, if you used to watch Only Fools and Horses. In every episode, his lounge would change. Well, this can be the same. It can change over time.

Moving on, we've now got the campus up and running and the reception areas completed. We're now having tenants arrive who want a more bespoke office. This brings us to Chapter Four.

We're working for an organisation called EMQN, a molecular diagnostics business. We're now doing laboratory fit-outs, creating spaces with a sense of place and giving them a strong identity.

They've moved from Manchester's science district on Oxford Road up to Exchange Quay. We're now inviting in key players and creating bespoke fit-outs, following some of the same ingredients we've used before but making them a little more specific to EMQN.

We liked it so much that we moved in ourselves! We didn't get a particularly good rate from the landlord, but now we're here as well as our client. This is our team. We occupy less than 1,000 square feet, and it's a really good studio: strong, vibrant and good fun.

So, what does the future hold?

It's pretty busy. We're working hard to keep the campus alive. We've got around 40,000 square feet of deals currently being done, and we're involved across six to seven fit-outs. Hopefully, if all of that comes through, we're going to move occupancy from the 75% it was when we originally started this journey, to just over 80% currently, and with those 40,000 square feet, we'll reach 88% occupancy.

For me as a designer, as much as I quite like creating beautiful interior design, this is very much about prosperity. It's about bringing places back to life. If we can bring these buildings back into useful life, then we're doing a great job.

The amenity element is very important. CBRE and the asset managers work very hard to bring a culture to the whole campus. There are bees up on the car park behind Building 5, some deckchairs that we need to paint orange at some point, and a herb garden with a kitchen where we eat every day. There are also events throughout the year. We've undertaken a fit-out of a wellness suite, and there's even some litter picking as well. Lots of things are happening at Exchange Quay. Hopefully, that gives you a bit of a story around what we do.

In terms of our design process, very quickly, we start with a diagram. We then build it in SketchUp, pull some images together and show the client a really quick visual. It's a very quick turnaround. We're light on our feet, and we know the components. But the key thing is that we're all a team pulling in the same direction, with the same motivations to create a successful campus.