Located in Chester, UK, this flagship canal side supermarket seamlessly blends in with its surroundings. 

Waitrose is a commercial development located on a key arterial route into Chester City Centre. The scheme, designed by Broadway Malyan’s Liverpool director, Matt Brook, comprises a new flagship Waitrose store together with a new, fully integrated public realm which includes an adjoining footbridge bridge over the city’s canal.

The project demonstrates that the key to good supermarket design is the promotion of place - and integral to this is the importance of sensitive scaling, well-considered geometry and thoughtful materiality.

The building and public realm are designed as part of a southern gateway to the Chester Central Business Quarter, which also includes an additional project by the practice - the fully consented mixed-use scheme, on the opposite side of the canal, incorporating Chester’s Grade II listed shot tower* and former leadworks.

Within this setting, the supermarket’s considerable massing is elegantly contained within a contemporary colonnade configuration that unifies the entire scheme, creating a strong civic presence. Active frontages along the principal facades engage with the surrounding area. This is particularly evident in the design of the retail units along Boughton Road, which animate the streetscape along a key route into the city centre.

Central to the scheme’s public realm is a slopped walkway that runs parallel with the building’s west elevation and travelator hall. This allows the lower level car parking to be concealed, while providing level access to the new footbridge that links directly with the wider Chester Central masterplan.

The specific alignment of the supermarket and the adjoining walkway, moreover, importantly enhance views of the shot tower from Boughton Road, thus providing this historic structure with a new urban purpose as a way-finding device for the train station and the Chester Business Quarter.

From a tectonic standpoint, the Waitrose store is articulated as a steel frame construction with the first floor constructed from pre-cast hollow core concrete planks topped with a structural concrete screed. The colonnade and primary structural elements expressed on the exterior of the building are set out on a 7.9m structural grid and clad in sheet bronze, with the principal elevations being clad in either perforated bronze sheets or glazed with a curtain wall capped with perforated bronze vertical fins. Both are set out vertically on a 1.128m grid sub-module of the primary structural grid.

The use of bronze, which was selected at an early stage, references the area’s industrial heritage and metalworking tradition. In addition, the strong, natural colour of gradually weathering bronze complements the surrounding historic brick and standstone buildings

The building has a BREEAM excellent rating; the design and orientation of the travelator hall provides passive heating for the store; while solar shading from perforated bronze fins, attached to the glazed curtain wall mullions, reduces the demand placed on the air conditioning system. Good levels of daylighting in the main public entrance lobbies and travelator hall reduces the requirement for artificial lighting during the day. 

Detailed planning consent was obtained in October 2012 following extensive collaboration with the local planning authority. Construction began in March 2014 and was completed, on schedule, by Barr Construction in November 2014. The practice's client was the John Lewis Partnership. Waitrose comprises a 2,756m² net sales store area, 432m² additional retail space, and 196 car park spaces.

Notes

* The shot tower, built in 1799, is the oldest of three remaining shot towers in the country and is probably the oldest such structure still standing in the world. It is also currently the tallest structure in Chester at just over 51m (168ft). The tower worked by dropping molten lead through a copper sieve at the top of the tower and the falling drops would form balls of lead shot for muskets. These were used in the Napoleonic Wars and lead works only ceased on the site in 2001.