Salford's New Bailey car park cloaked in 'ribbons' by Maple's architectural façades

Former prison site transformed as Maple realise architect’s vision to create award-winning multi-storey car park

Maple gave architects Aedas RHWL the freedom to express themselves on a prominent multi-storey car park development in Salford. Their imaginative design created a great concept - the nine storey New Bailey car park appearing to be wrapped in ribbons that echo the lattice patterns and intersections in the ironwork of nearby Victorian bridges.

The design also had practical benefits, with the open façade allowing the building to be naturally ventilated and lit (reducing artificial lighting requirements), while still providing protection from the elements. However, it still had to be transformed from vision to reality.

“We took the design to the next stage - building on the original vision, and transforming it into a fabricated product,” said Maple designer Adam Jones. “We worked closely with the architect at every stage to ensure we never lost the integrity of their design.”

Samples of all key components were produced and tested, before more than 1,700 perforated mesh panels were created using state-of-the-art software and fabrication methods. The panels were coated in different colours in line with the architects’ design, while attention to detail went as far as determining the location of fixing screws.

The car park has been featured in an article titled ‘The beauty of car parks’ on the front page of the BBC website, and subsequently won the best Architectural Achievement Award at the 2016 British Parking Awards.

We were extremely pleased with the end result. Maple wanted the façade to be as good as we did, and that pushed the project from both sides - it was all very collaborative.” Alasdair Mealey, Aedas Associate