Design process

The IRA bomb blast in June 1996 destroyed a large part of Manchester's city centre, including the area around Exchange Square. Following the devastation, Manchester Millennium Ltd, a public/private partnership, was set up by the Government and Manchester City Council to develop a recovery strategy for the city. Manchester Millennium's initial task was to launch an international urban design competition for a redevelopment framework. This was awarded to EDAW who, by the following February, had developed a flexible master plan to guide the redevelopment of the area now known as the 'Millennium Quarter'.

Early in the masterplanning process, Exchange Square was seen as the key component in the restructuring of public space.

Development from the EDAW plan was not a smooth process, however. Late in 1997 four schemes that had been short-listed through competition were dropped by Manchester Millennium Ltd. These various schemes' use of hard landscaping, including water features, had addressed the level change between the Corn Exchange and New Marks and Spencer's sites, but none had provided the overall design sought by Manchester Millennium. It was at this stage that Martha Swartz, Inc. was invited to submit a scheme for the site.

The design team led by Martha Swartz decided to address the changes in level by laying out a plaza in front of the new Selfridges building, squeezing the gradient down in front of the Corn Exchange.

The use of curves also set up the geometry for the series of ramps, lined by low wide walls which negotiate the one storey level change across the site. Originally, the walls were designed to have inset boxes containing local industrial artifacts to link this scheme to the city's industrial past. These were never put in place as the city council feared they would be attacked by vandals.

The most contentious part of the design development, however, was the proposed inclusion of five ersatz palm trees. The trees were axed from the scheme at some point in 1999, and replaced by four tilting steel windmills, a design by artist John Hyatt. Martha Swartz Inc. had no input into the discussions regarding this design change, and was not retained for the two final stages of the design, the construction documentation or for overseeing the construction process.