University of Manchester_Alliance Manchester Business School

Post occupancy evaluation

In a prominent site on the University of Manchester campus, Alliance Manchester Business School is one of the UK’s first two business schools, and the UK’s largest since 2004 – now over 2,000 students and 200 staff. In 2019, AMBS formally opened its newly enlarged and updated building. The centrepiece, designed by BDP, is a substantial, daylight-filled, open, new four-storey block accommodating library and study space, lecture theatres and teaching rooms, and informal spaces, including two prominent cafés.

Entered through its substantial arrival and seating area, with direct sightlines to the Ground Floor café, the new block links to and integrates with AMBS’ two 1970’s buildings. Designed by Hugh Wilson and Lewis Womersley, these linear and largely cellular existing buildings – now partly redesigned – mostly house the School’s academics, professional staff, and postgraduate students.

The building incorporates numerous retail outlets providing active frontage on the bustling Oxford Road and leafy University Green. Undertaken in collaboration with commercial developer Bruntwood, the overall scheme includes a new Executive Education centre allied to a Hyatt Hotel, directly opposite AMBS new entrance, with both buildings benefitting from a new pedestrian route that leads onto campus from Booth Street.

Commissioned by University of Manchester and AMBS in 2024, ZZA’s POE evaluated the building’s performance in use, as experienced by its cross-section of core user groups: Undergraduates, MSc’s, MBAs, PhDs, academics, professional services staff, and personnel who run the building and its services in its key specialist capacities.