Auraline Residence

Oxygen Tower rises over Store Street, and this two bedroom, two bathroom home occupies a single level on its thirty first floor: approximately 780 square feet in Manchester’s Piccadilly district. The plan is generous rather than clever: one open room for cooking, eating, and sitting, glazed end to end, the bedrooms quietly behind. Manchester Piccadilly, the city’s principal station, sits a short walk away, though little of it carries this far up. Sleeping four, with a twenty five metre pool, a spa level with sauna and steam room, and a private cinema downstairs, it is built for staying, not passing through.

Warmth does the work here. Milk white walls and pale oak floors carry the rooms, while graphite cabinetry and speckled stone lend weight. A cognac leather sofa anchors the living space, its patina softening the geometry of glass and steel, with wool underfoot and greenery in the corners. The bedrooms turn quieter still in oatmeal and soft grey, the bathrooms in limestone keeping the same restraint. Then the glazing slides back and the rooftops run east until the Pennines take over. The sun comes up on this side, and the walls take its colour before the city is awake.