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FMJ visits Manchester’s Exchange Quay to see how the design team from Jasper Sanders + Partners in partnership with property managers Till AM are adopting a human centric approach to revitalising an iconic office campus
“Build it and they will come” is not an adage which tracks for most facilities managers. No matter how attractive a building and impressive the architecture, if the workplace doesn’t offer a community feel, the primary aim, to attract and retain talent will be a struggle.
This is why property managers Till AM and interior design and placemaking studio Jasper Sanders + Partners are working together to deliver a human centric environment that ensures Manchester’s Exchange Quay series of office buildings remains the city’s leading workplace campus.
Exchange Quay comprises seven medium-rise towers, providing 472,000 sq ft of Grade A office space. Based at Salford Quays near Manchester City Centre and the major motorway networks, it comes complete with its own dedicated Metrolink tram stop. The campus supports a mix of businesses, including technology, education, and professional services and boasts both major brands like Renault, Teltonika and 3M, as well as a range of smaller businesses.
Originally built in the 1980s, the site has had a series of design upgrades, which over the last six years, have been carried out by Jasper Sanders + Partners which includes the refurbishment of reception areas, fit-outs for a series of offices across the campus and the redesign of the site’s huge-scale wayfinding totems.
The key purpose as Les Lang Director of Till AM describes it, is to create a human centric environment: “This means it puts people first. Right from the start of my career in property and my investment management business, my business partner and I always put amenities first, which wasn’t generally the case, so we were out of kilter with everybody else.
“When the world changed after covid, it became very high up on everybody else’s list as well and with everywhere we were already managing we had a head start because we’d been doing it all along.”
The result is a workplace campus which goes beyond the office space to include amenities ranging from an on-site post office and deck chairs for sunny days to a campus kitchen, coffee shop, picnic area and a wellness centre.
DESIGN UPGRADES
Central to this vision was to elevate the look and feel of the interiors with an initial series of projects for Jasper Sanders’ studio to upgrade the reception areas for Buildings 8 and 5. This included the creation of “third space” areas, including breakout booths, coffee break spaces and meeting areas for occupants.
Next came the redesign of the entrance, first-floor mezzanine, and lift lobbies of Building 1, much of which is tailored to suit its corporate tenants. This building also presents great curb appeal as a frontage to the entire campus. A series of further ‘refresh’ projects followed in 2022 and 2023, including the creation of marketing suites for Buildings 5 and 10, a wellness suite for Building 10 and suite designs for Buildings 7 and 8.
The design relationship has been so successful that in 2025, to house its expanding team of five full-time and additional part-time and consultant staff, Jasper Sanders + Partners took their own space in Building 5 of Exchange Quay. And as Jasper Sanders points out while larger companies moving into the campus may choose to manage their own fit-outs, Exchange Quay can offer to support SMEs with their own individual fit-outs. For tenants who would rather choose an ‘occupation ready’ office, the design team also creates a range of speculative office fit-outs.
Says Sanders: “I’ve worked with Les for quite a few years now and we’ve been fortunate enough to become his ‘go to’ design firm. The ethos is that while we’re creating bespoke interiors for specific businesses with their own nuances, there’s an underlying thread of creating spaces for people aiming for business success.
“We share this same philosophical starting point and the same philosophy about trying to create great places for businesses, through creating places for people.”
The team believes that when it comes to designing an office, each company’s requirements are different, so the best place to begin is in talking to people.
Explains Nathalie Kenning, Lead Interior Designer at Jasper Sanders + Partners: “Something we also face is that sometimes we see potential tenants who might not necessarily know exactly what they want and having a conversation with them to begin with and taking them around other examples of office fit-outs [on the site] helps open their minds to the possibilities.”
Offering each tenant this individual solution is an important element of the design process and one which is reflected in a recent fit-out the EMQN (European Molecular Genetics Quality Network). With the idea being to help support a culture of collaboration and client engagement the fit-out includes two private offices, a meeting room, and a large boardroom.
