Factory International Aviva Studios / OMA

Since it was launched in 2007, the Manchester International Festival has taken place in existing buildings both large and small throughout the city. But spaces with the qualities needed by the art pieces commissioned by the Festival are fewer and fewer, disappearing amid Manchester’s fast-paced redevelopment into England’s new economic hub. In 2015 Manchester City Council launched an architecture competition for a new kind of art venue for the Manchester International Festival (MIF), capable of hosting both art performances and exhibitions, separately or simultaneously.