Rochdale’s flagship building scoops national award

Number One Riverside, the ‘jewel in the crown’ of Rochdale town centre’s regeneration, has won another prestigious award.

The striking six-storey state-of-the-art council building has won the award for ‘Best Mixed Use Building’ in the most prestigious event in the construction industry – the Concrete Society Awards.

The news follows Number One’s regional success, just one week ago, when it walked away with the ‘Building of the Year’ crown at the Manchester Chamber of Commerce awards. The building beat competition from other innovative new buildings from across the country, including the Clapham One library, Manchester Airport Control Tower and the new Co-op building, One Angel Square.

Deputy Leader of the Council, Councillor Peter Williams, said he was delighted at the news and added: “To beat such impressive competition shows the quality of this stunning building, which is at the forefront of design and sustainable technology. Number One is a truly unique building which, as well as providing essential services for people in the borough, is the jewel in the crown of the on-going regeneration which is transforming Rochdale town centre.

"Congratulations in particular should go to FaulknerBrowns Architects and, structural engineers, Curtins for inspired collaboration on the design."

Number One Riverside is a multi-purpose building that houses a public library, a ‘one-stop-shop’ for residents and offices. The building also includes a coffee shop and has a unit for future restaurant use. It has state of the art meeting and conference facilities which are available for community use, as well as providing office space for partner organisations.

Number One Riverside opened to customers in March 2013 and was designed specifically to reduce carbon emissions and includes features such as:

• solar thermal panels to use the sun’s rays to generate hot water and photovoltaic panels creating renewable electricity
• wood pellets are burnt in a biomass boiler to generate sustainable heat rainwater is harvested from the roof to be recycled for the flushing of toilets
• a sedum or ‘green’ roof and thermal mass technology which helps to cool the building in the summer
• throughout the building energy saving light-bulbs are used. recycling receptacles on each floor too so that staff can dispose of their waste responsibly.

The low energy building is expected save the authority around £1 million each year for over 40 years through the closure of old and inefficient buildings.

Other regeneration projects in the town centre include the new transport interchange, extensive public realm improvement works as well as proposals for a £100m mixed leisure and retail development and the reopening of the River Roch to reveal historic bridges.