Anonymous
Based in the up-and-coming area of New Islington, a short walk from the Northern Quarter and various City Centre hot spots, CHIPS is the brainchild of Urban Splash and avant garde architect Will Alsop. Situated alongside the now defunct Ashton Canal it is surrounded on three sides by waterways, grass verges and thriving habitation, not to mention parkland, football pitches and the odd rubble strewn patch of wasteland eagerly anticipating the next stage in the North's first Millennium Community. With 8 floors of 1,2 and 3 bedroom apartments and a ground floor offering space for several studios, work spaces and a restaurant the building offers more than you'd initially expect. It's bright and colorful facade reads off the locations Manchester previously traded with when the now calm and soothing Ashton Canal was a teeming vein of commerce helping make Manchester the force it is today. Now no longer the centre of the Industrial Revolution it is projects like New Islington and CHIPS that help make Manchester stand out once again. Many hope that CHIPS will herald a period of sustained revitalization for this once impoverished suburb.