Selfridges, the famous retail emporium, required a new, state-of-the-art store, in contrast with their neo-classical flagship building in London’s Oxford Street. They also wanted a structure that would provide an architectural landmark for Birmingham and give a new impetus to urban regeneration. Future Systems, innovative British architectural firm, with their speciality of designing iconic, mould-breaking buildings, were eminently qualified for the task. Selfridges Manchester is everything unexpected of a retailer situated in the heart of a historic pedestrian area.

Future Systems re-interpreted the notion of a department store, not only in its form and appearance, but also by analyzing the social function such a building plays in contemporary society. Its relationship to the church is significant, representing the religious and commercial lives of the city that have evolved side by side over hundreds of years. Selfridges Department Store is a highly competitive retailer that aims to “encapsulate the spirit of modern society”. Their intention is to reinvent the meaning of “leisure time” and the shopping experience as an aspect of that time.

They wanted a store where the visitor can be energized, invigorated, and inspired. Perhaps no other retailer since Harrod’s, Marshall Fields, or Galleries Lafayette has managed to accomplish this so seriously in their architecture. The form of the building is soft and curvaceous in response to the natural curve of the site, sweeping around the corner and wrapping over the top to form the roof. The roof light in the new Selfridges store is an organic, free-formed shape. The idea was from sources as diverse as sailing and motor sport, whilst the brief was to leave the daylight area unimpeded so as to reflect the open free space of the interior. Like an urban canyon, the atrium allows shafts of natural light to penetrate deep inside the space.

Glasgow-based Vision Graphics were assigned in to help Haran Glass produce a number of unusual glass openings in The Selfridges Department Store. Working with Future Systems, Haran Glass designed a solution to the technically-challenging glass installation for this new architectural landmark. On the sides of the building, Haran was briefed to design a number of free-formed windows. In order to produce a complex screen-printed pattern for the glass, Haran had to design a unique software application and use 3D modelling skills. Areas of the glass required a reflective mirror surface and each opening is positioned at a different angle.

The ambition for the interior is to meet the expectation raised by the exterior, with its unique, curiosity-arousing facade which is covered in 15,000 spun aluminium discs. The fluidity of the building’s bubble-shaped form is matched inside with an organically-shaped atrium stretching across the floor plan. In sunlight it shimmers, reflecting minute changes in weather conditions and taking on the colours, light and shapes of people and things passing by, an animate and breathing form. It is expressive in a way that is aesthetically innovative but also clearly signifies its function as a department store, without the need for signage.

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