Published BD 2nd October 2018
Shock news from Manchester this week, the planning committee actually refused a tower, well it wasn’t quite a refusal, they were ‘minded’ to refuse and this only on the casting vote of the chair. The proposed 35 storey tower, promoted by Logik, the developer fronted by the former cricketer Freddy Flintoff was admittedly virtually in the grounds of the Grade II* St George’s Church as well as being in a conservation area, but to be honest such considerations have not noticeably concerned the city’s planners in the past.
If Manchester has a tall buildings policy it would appear to run to just two words – ‘yes please’. As the graphic of Manchester’s changing skyline by Savills demonstrates there are seven towers, taller than the Logik tower currently under construction in Manchester including Simpson Haugh’s Owen Street B which, as it tops out at 64 storeys is already dwarfing their nearby Beetham Tower which has dominated the city’s skyline since its completion in 2006. However before long this too will be exceeded by the 67 storey Trinity Island scheme by Child Graddon Lewis architects and joined by 11 further towers that have been consented in the city with more planned in neighbouring Salford.
My guilty secret is that I’m quite excited by Manchester’s burgeoning skyline. It has a thrill that reminds me of Chicago and is actually quite in keeping with Mancunians’ brash, self-confident, f**k you attitude. There, I said it out loud, I know its wrong but I can’t help myself!
But from an urbanist’s perspective are towers so wrong? Sure there are many good arguments against them. Some relate to a feeling of unease at the excess that they represent. This is particularly true of the luxury, apartment towers in London bought as investment and left unoccupied. But the Manchester towers on the whole are PRS (private rented apartments funded by pension funds) mixed with a few hotels so that this is less of an issue. Property colleagues fret about the glut of housing coming onto the market and the unwritten rule that the building of towers presages a property crash. This is a very real concern but it relates to the volume rather than form of development. There are also strong sustainability arguments about tall buildings using more energy and the effect that they have on local microclimate as I notice every evening as I am buffered by sudden gusts of wind on my cycle ride home. Then of course there are arguments over conservation although these, as we say, have never really troubled Manchester except perhaps for Ian Simpson’s proposal for an upturned dometo limit building heights around the town hall.
From an urbanist perspective we can turn, as always, to Jan Gehl who argues that any property above the 6th floor of a building has no relationship with the street and might as well be in a far-flung suburb. But is that really true? It is a long time since people sitting on their balconies below the 6th floor held conversations across the street. People in towers will exit via the foyer at some point (even if many of the PRS schemes include their own communal lounges, gyms and cafes). Would the streets of New York or Chicago be as lively if all the towers were cropped at 6 storeys? The reality, as Gehl has also pointed out, is that places like his home city of Copenhagen were full of life a hundred years ago because its apartments were crammed with families of up to ten people. The same properties today are occupied by single people, couples and small families so that the density of occupation is maybe a quarter of what it was. What is more, all this private internal space means that people can live their lives indoors, rather than out on the street, as they were forced to do in the overcrowded past. So maybe we need to build higher if we want really lively streets?
Climax City 
04/29/2020 at 5:24 pm
The problem with Jan Gehl is that though his views usually seem plausible, the research evidence for them isn’t open and on display.
Which isn’t to say that there isn’t lots of evidence for the case against towers, and I’m disappointed to see it glossed over by reference to Gehl who, for the reason cited above, is a bit of a ‘paper tiger’.
Let me copy-paste the conclusions of a recent Bristol Civic Society forum:
> Tall buildings use dramatically more energy than other buildings on an ongoing basis, in fact 100% more energy per square metre. Their carbon emissions per square metre are more than twice as large. Tall buildings in fact never use less energy. Though this is speculative, the most likely reason appears to be that tall buildings are exposed to cold air and wind in winter, and heat in summer, because they stick up. So they need more heating and more cooling.
> Tall buildings also use more “embodied energy”, i.e. energy consumed during construction, before the building is brought into use.
> The densities achieved by tower buildings can generally be achieved in slabs or courtyard buildings of less than half the height.
> Tall buildings cause greater loneliness and more depression, are not optimal for children, are associated with social relations that are more impersonal and where helping behaviour is less than in other housing forms.
> Tall buildings are widely disliked. This matters to our future, because research has shown a strong correlation between cities being attractive, and increasing prosperity.
Click to access Philip-Steadman.pdf
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233490985_The_Consequences_of_Living_in_High-Rise_Buildings
https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/05/beautiful-cities-economic-growth-data-beauty-premium/589480/