SpaceInvader completes five-storey office interior 
for Virgin Media O2 in Manchester

Designers SpaceInvader have completed a nearly 50,000 sq ft office interior for Virgin Media O2 across five floors of Island, the new, 10-storey, 100,000 sq ft, net zero carbon workspace on John Dalton Street in Manchester’s central business district. The building, completed in late 2024 for developer HBD, was designed by architects Cartwright Pickard with Cat A interiors by EPR Architects.

Virgin Media O2 Offices Manchester 5th Floor Entrance and AMP

SpaceInvader was formed in Manchester in 2009 and is now a B Corp certified company, as well as one of the UK’s premier design agencies, with over 60 creative awards and nominations for its work across the commercial, hospitality, stadia, residential, commercial and community sectors.

With the new tenancy agreement signed in October 2024, SpaceInvader was appointed for the fit-out project against stiff competition from major-name architectural firms because of their ‘outstanding creativity and deep understanding of the culture of the city of Manchester’ according to Barbara Johnston, Senior Property Programmes and Project Manager at Virgin Media O2.

SpaceInvader kicked the project off with a series of co-creation workshops with the team based at the existing Virgin Media O2 Wythenshawe office in South Manchester. The workshops were aimed at pinpointing design priorities, as well as discovering what the team liked or didn’t about their existing offices. The project then followed a strict ideation schedule before a 22-week construction programme by lead contractor Overbury, which hit all its milestones before the team moved in at the end of 2025.

Location

The Manchester office is now one of the core UK offices for Virgin Media O2 and occupies floors five to nine of Island, with the majority of the floorspace housing the operator’s customer centre team, with the Virgin Media O2 corporate teams, the event space, and a quiet library and wellbeing space on the eighth floor. The ninth is home to the catering offer and accompanying bookable working lounge facilities.

The floorplan was marked out from the start with the best viewpoints over Manchester, to ensure these would become social and communal areas, so that everyone in the team benefitted from the best views at some point in their working day. The building boasts fantastic views in all directions as it’s now the tallest building in the vicinity. Views include Deansgate Towers from the southern elevation; the town hall and library to the east; the rooftops of the oldest sections of the city to the north and Deansgate, looking towards Salford, to the west.

Project Brief

The client brief set out a number of clear priorities, including the reflection of the brand spirit and the design of a best-in-class office space positioning Virgin Media O2 as an employer of choice in the region. The office environment needed to provide current and future employees with an environment that supports high performance work, enables hybrid working and provides amenity and lifestyle services to serve employees’ daily lives. Additional requirements included reflecting Mancunian culture and promoting the local community; achieving BREEAM Outstanding and WELL Platinum accreditations and embodying a focus on sustainability and wellness.

Design Overview

8th Floor Bleacher Shot

“From beginning to end, this project had its end-users at its heart” John Williams, Director/Founder of SpaceInvader commented. “The initial co-creation and senior leadership team sessions allowed for a thorough understanding of requirements, so that we could create a scheme that seamlessly combined brand and local identities. The new workspace includes focused working environments; collaborative settings; training and meeting rooms of varying sizes and 1:1 spaces – all designed for flexibility, accessibility and human connection.”

The final scheme is a highly vibrant and dynamic environment, with each floor inspired by a different aspect of Mancunian culture. It uses highly sustainable materials, furniture and fittings throughout with high consideration of user wellbeing and neurodiversity. Beyond providing workspace, the fit-out offers supportive amenities including catering, working lounges, wellbeing and quiet library space, as well as faith rooms and returning parent rooms. Very much on its way to achieving both BREEAM Outstanding and WELL Platinum standards, the project proves that performance and impact can be delivered through design intelligence and purpose-led construction – and look fantastic at the same time.

“This is not just a beautiful scheme” John Williams concluded, “but a testament to the entire team: a workplace brief, design and fit-out that have been set down and achieved with determination and intent to look after the climate, its users and local community.”

Design Challenges

Returning Parent Room

Challenges included incorporating the different needs of each type of operation (i.e. the contact centre and corporate teams); creating connection between colleagues split over so many floors; connecting the floors, and employing the huge number of different finishes, joinery types and furniture that would be needed, based upon the differing concepts for each floor.

A new landmark staircase now enhances vertical connectivity and encourages movement, while supporting collaboration between teams across multiple floors. Spatial planning within the narrow wing and angled façade of the building required a thoughtful and considered strategy and the design team’s approach was centred on a clear structural rhythm that could be repeated across all working floor plates. This supports intuitive wayfinding for end-users while prioritising wellbeing at the desk. To ensure ease of navigation, functions are consistently positioned in the same locations on each floor. Where variations occur, spaces retain a similar spatial role but differ in use; for example, the returning parent room and the multi-faith room are located in the same position as other supporting facilities, ensuring consistency while responding to different needs.

Typical Call and Focus Rooms

A key part of the brief was to ensure that as many spaces as possible were fully accessible to all users. The inclusion of large-format meeting spaces placed pressure on the remaining floor area but the introduction of curved partitions – an integral part of the visual wellbeing identity, inspired by natural forms – became pivotal in resolving fire strategy, DDA compliance, and headcount requirements. The use of curves enhances the performance of the floorplates and create a softer visual environment for all.

Desking, meanwhile, is all positioned along the perimeter to maximize access to natural daylight and to avoid cellular interventions in the majority of spaces, with blinds provided to support different working conditions. The building is equipped with air quality sensors that notify users when windows should be opened, supporting the WELL and BREEAM strategies.

Design Approach

6th floor entrance portal and artist mural

SpaceInvader’s response to the design brief creates a true sense of place in the city centre, with a scheme that includes employees’ responses to the question of what best defines Manchester. Answers were collated and the top five were: sport; science and industry; pop culture; music and venues. These then became the themes which determined the materials, colour palettes, shapes and forms on each floor. The approach created a strong sense of place and also enabled clear identity and subtle wayfinding throughout the building.

In addition to these themes, the design sought to convey the overall idea of Manchester as a progressive city, especially on the environmental front, with its city-wide commitment to regenerative design and the creation of forward-thinking spaces suited for both today’s and tomorrow’s citizens. To reflect this, the designers created a ‘Ribbon of Oxygen’ at the heart of the scheme, in the form of a continuous biophilic element woven through all open-plan working areas. Integrating planting in both expected and unexpected locations, the ribbon guides occupiers naturally towards spaces for focus, collaboration and restoration. It enables a calibrated transition from higher-energy ‘Amp’ and ‘Huddle’ social spaces to calmer, more biophilic-led environments, supporting productivity, wellbeing and neurodiverse needs through the provision of a variety of settings.

Design Walk-through

8th Floor Meet and Acoustic Feature

The front of the eighth floor houses the main entrance and reception for visiting guests, located alongside an interview room and a key meeting room that can be sub-divided into two spaces as required. A feature bleacher staircase serves all the teams and functions as a venue for team gatherings and town halls, doubling as a working lounge when not in use.

The bleacher staircase connects the eighth floor to the ninth floor working lounge, which supports informal working and can also be enclosed with an acoustic curtain for bookable team meetings and development sessions. The opposite flank of the ninth floor houses the staff canteen.

The front areas across each floor have been treated as high energy spaces, encouraging collaboration, accidental meetings and breakout usage. This is expressed via the material palette and selection of furniture, as well as by artwork. Artworks were variously produced by the in-house team through a ‘Wonderwall’ competition maximising staff creativity and hidden talents – as well as installations created by the branding team. The back spaces of each floor have been designed to encourage a calmer palette to aid concentration and productivity.

8th Floor Working Lounge joinery

The CAT A general lighting has been retained throughout the CAT-B fit out as an important part of the project’s sustainability strategy. Ventilation and MEP equipment have been retained where possible also. Acoustics have been increased in all areas to support the functions across all floor plates, with acoustic baffle systems used in working areas and acoustic wall panels and acoustic ceiling spray used in meeting rooms and communal spaces, such as the reception and bleacher stair space.

The visual identity of each floor is rooted both in Manchester’s cultural DNA and the synergies between each floor’s concept and the Virgin Media O2 brand ethos. In each case, the design has gone way beyond the cliché. The sports floor for example, could easily have been reduced to a focus on the city’s red and blue football teams, but additionally references skateboarding, tennis and rugby instead – especially with O2 being the England rugby sponsor for both the men’s and women’s teams.

Fifth Floor: The Sports Floor

5th Floor Huddle Space

The fifth floor draws its energy from Manchester’s dynamic sports scene — not just football, but tennis, watersports, rugby, and even skateparks. Shapes and forms drew inspiration from the skateparks under the Mancunian Way, whilst mesh screens represent the tennis scene. Movement, community and team spirit are expressed in the social spaces through vibrant colours, expressive forms and energetic materiality. Accidental meeting points, huddle zones, tea points and meeting rooms feel lively and uplifting, encouraging people to connect and keep moving. As people venture into the wings of the building, this bold palette gradually softens into a calm, biophilic-led design that supports wellness, focus and productivity. The balance of high-energy and quiet zones offers meaningful choice, especially for neurodivergent users seeking different sensory and noise levels.

Sixth Floor: Science and Industry

6th Floor Artist Mural

Arriving on the sixth floor, the visitor is greeted by two large training rooms wrapped in a bespoke mural by artist Andrew Wolfenden, celebrating Manchester’s legacy of science and industry,  from the industrial revolution to cutting-edge innovation. The material palette here is refined and understated, echoing precision, progress and curiosity. As with the floor below, the design gently transitions into a more natural, biophilic atmosphere toward the rear, supporting quieter working styles.

Seventh Floor: Popular Culture

7th Floor AMP Area

The seventh floor bursts with colour, texture and creativity, taking its cues from Manchester’s artistic pulse and its influence across TV, film and gaming. Playful furniture and vibrant communal spots encourage people to gather, chat and create. These high-energy areas are balanced with a series of focused support spaces, including decompression rooms, 1:1 pods and facilities such as a returning-parent room. Each floor offers its own amenities, keeping user needs at its centre.

7th Floor Gaming brand artwork

Eighth Floor: Music

8th Floor Meeting Room

The beating heart of the eighth floor is the feature bleacher staircase, forming a striking reception and event space inspired by the atmosphere of recording studios. Artwork here celebrates Manchester’s iconic music heritage, whilst its forms echo the fluid, expressive nature of sound. This area effortlessly transforms from hosting large-scale events to accommodating informal catchups and small team gatherings. Focused work zones follow the calming approach of the lower floors, with a serene library space located beside the wellbeing room and providing a quiet retreat for reflection whenever needed.

8th Floor Quiet Library feature joinery

Ninth Floor: Apollo

9th Floor Repeater Screen for Bleachers

Home to the catering and social hub, the right side of the ninth floor space invites users to eat and recharge, while the left side expands into a flexible working lounge and collaboration space. The design throughout is inspired by the architecture and interior character of the O2 Apollo Arena, one of Manchester’s most popular venues. The result is a warm, social, and atmospheric space that brings people together at all times of day.

Space planning is centred around creating an impact on entrance and a place where different teams can congregate and collaborate. The front of the floorplates contains the high-energy usage areas, such as tea points and a breakout space, before moving around into the wings of the building, where the design moves into supporting structured and unstructured work through focused working desking, broken up with ‘Huddle’ (collaborative) spaces, meeting rooms, 1:1 spaces and supporting amenities.

9th floor working lounge

Signage

Signage across the scheme follows the Virgin Media O2 property brand guidelines, whose preferences for oak were a good match for the material palette. To create a differentiated feature in the Manchester location, SpaceInvader, together with the client branding team, created ‘portals’ at the entrance to each floor plate with a floor level number, with the design suiting each floorplate and theme. The visual identity of floorplates also helps colleagues intuitively with wayfinding.

Sustainability

7th Floor Private Call Pods

Quality and longevity were fundamental to the project’s sustainability and operational strategy. Every material and product was therefore assessed for durability, suitability, and long-term performance, ensuring that low embodied carbon did not come at the expense of build quality or maintainability.

“We successfully used materiality by applying different colours and finishes across all floors” Bethany Gibson, Associate at SpaceInvader commented, “thereby creating different atmospheres in a considered and consistent manner, whilst at the same time using only the minimal number of suppliers. Sustainable materials were used across all floors and we sought to specify manufacturers who run take-back schemes for their products or similar. Accessibility, meanwhile, has been another huge success of the scheme, with virtually every single room on all five floorplates made accessible, with the curved corridors proving to be a particularly innovative contribution to this in terms of wheelchair turning space.”

8th Floor stable across from reception for Hamish the Horse

And finally – Hamish the Horse…

There was one item the Wythenshawe team insisted came with them to the new premises: Hamish the Horse. Hamish was the pet name granted by the team to the lifesize horse lamp originally designed by Swedish design studio Front for Moooi in 2006, as part of their animal collection (comprised of a pig, horse and rabbit). The SpaceInvader team ran with the challenge of finding a good home for Hamish and created his own bespoke stable on the eighth floor, directly opposite reception, so that as many people as possible get to say ‘hello’ to Hamish each day.

Client summary:

“It’s been a genuine pleasure working in partnership with SpaceInvader throughout this scheme”, Rodney Hogg, Property Director of Virgin Media O2 commented. “The team’s professionalism, attention to detail and commitment to excellence have been consistently evident and have greatly contributed to the successful outcome of this project. The result is a new workplace that not only meets our needs today, but will support the wellbeing, collaboration and success of our people for many years to come.”