SODA

SODA is conceived as a landmark building for digital creativity and innovation — a five-storey interior environment that brings together teaching, making, and display into a seamless, immersive experience for students and staff. Designed to support disciplines from film and animation to AI, user experience, photography, and games, the interiors fuse high-tech infrastructure with flexible, expressive spatial qualities.

The building’s interiors are organized to inspire creativity, connectivity, and exploration. At its core lies a series of digitally enabled social and display zones — the “village greens,” digital hall, and gathering spaces — which act as thresholds between academic zones and catalyst spaces for interaction. These areas are glazed, open, and framed with views into adjacent studios and labs, reinforcing visual connectivity and inviting chance encounters.

Digital displays are deeply integrated into nearly every surface across the building — from large public areas to specialist labs and flexible studios. These embedded systems transform walls into canvases, enabling the building to become an active participant in digital arts content, communication, and experimentation.

Academic and technical zones — studios, labs, and workspace clusters — are configured to support multiple modes of working: individual focus, small team projects, large coordination, and installation setups. Interiors are calibrated for precise environmental control: lighting, acoustics, and access to services are tuned to support creative work in media, computing, and fabrication. Transparency, flexibility, and technological infrastructure are key: many partitions are glazed or adjustable, and spaces can be reconfigured to suit evolving pedagogies.

Material selection and detailing balance expression and performance. Surfaces sized for displays, acoustics built into ceilings and walls, robust finishes that tolerate making and technology — all are selected to age gracefully and allow adaptability as the school’s needs change.

SODA’s interior design delivers both functional excellence and inspirational atmosphere. The embedded technology, flexible layouts, and expression of digital culture throughout the space reinforce the university’s identity in media and creative technologies. The building itself becomes part of the curriculum — a working tool, a gallery, and a platform for experimentation.

By weaving together public and private functions — social zones that open into working labs, visible connections between floors, and display surfaces — the design encourages interdisciplinary exchange, elevating serendipitous moments of collaboration and discovery.

The flexibility built into the interiors ensures resilience over time: as discipline areas or technologies evolve, the spaces can be retuned rather than rebuilt. This adaptability is a long-term investment in the facility’s lifespan and relevance.

SODA has quickly established itself as a cultural and educational anchor for MMU’s creative faculties. It supports over a thousand students annually, providing a facility where academic and industry partnerships — such as with broadcasters and digital firms — can intersect. The building’s presence in the city reinforces Manchester’s identity as a hub for creative media, innovation, and cultural technology.

Beyond its academic role, the building engages the public via its façade — the front elevation acts as a four-storey video light wall, displaying digital content created by students, engaging passersby and blurring the boundary between inside and outside. This makes the building a canvas for student work, public communication, and a beacon of digital culture in the city.

The facade’s video wall is powered exclusively using energy from rooftop photovoltaic cells, ensuring that the interactive display system does not draw external power. Infrastructure is designed for configurability, allowing spaces to change without major intervention, thereby reducing future waste and embodied carbon.

Rooms and zones can be digitally linked and reconfigured in real time, enabling flexible spatial layouts while reducing the need for physical renovation. The interiors combine ecological responsibility with digital expression, ensuring the building is not only a platform for creativity but also a model for low-carbon, future-ready educational architecture.