Advertising Agency Offices, Oldham Road, Manchester 1 Part 1 Project 2004 Laura Stafford Manchester School of Architecture Manchester | UK The design for an international advertising agency on Oldham Road, Manchester, looks at the impact of advertising and branding on the built environment.Advertising and branding is considered using the example of Oldham Road, where multinational branding informs the local built environment; this influences the characteristics and material choices of the agency and its surrounding landscape.The building is conceived as a neutral form, in recognition of the silent role an advertising agency plays in brand generation and the publication of advertising campaigns. The internal layout is informed by the mundane and spectacular working arrangements peculiar to an advertising agency. Asked to "Travel along Oldham Road and stop when you have arrived somewhere", the scheme that developed engaged in a critical analysis of the contemporary city and the activities that define it. It explores the dislocation between the anonymous brand makers and the globally successful brand. Through this it questions the status of contemporary urban space and the necessity of urban place making. The sampling based design method specified components for their international nomenclature. Cladding derived from exotically named, yet ubiquitous, domestic net curtains wraps a neutral external form that can transform itself to frame a space of spectacle.