Riverside House

Riverside House forms part of the New Bailey Masterplan in Salford, which provides new retail, offices, leisure facilities and housing to the area. New Bailey is framed by the historic Southern Railway viaduct to the north and the River Irwell to the south. Riverside House stands beside the listed Irwell Street Bridge, one of three river crossings that connect the New Bailey masterplan to Manchester. The building is modest in scale compared with many of its neighbours but due to its prominent position it acts as a gateway to this new development. Believed to have been built in the late 1890s as a Royal Veterans’ Tavern, the existing building was a fine example of late Victorian Gothic architecture but had fallen to disrepair and dilapidation. The footprint of the former Royal Veterans’ Tavern building occupied half the site, and the new build addition, conceived as a mirror image of the old tavern, has doubled this footprint to the south. With much of the building beyond viable salvage, a strategy of facade retention was selected as the best way to conserve the urban presence of the building’s celebrated facade, while bringing the site back into meaningful use. The street facing facades of the existing building have been retained, carefully restored and strategically adapted, with the new building now providing 1400sqm of characterful office space. The new massing and fenestration pattern echoes the original, but a contemporary language of details was developed to be distinct from the historic elements, whilst still allowing the building to read as a harmonious whole.