Ardwick Works, Manchester
Work near people, not next to them
Loft Nine is a 1904 cotton warehouse with 120 oak desks, ten phone booths and a roof terrace. Day passes from £24. Private offices for two to twelve.
The building
Nine bays of oak desks under a steel roof, eight minutes from the station, with a kitchen people actually use.
120
Desks across nine bays
10
Soundproof phone booths
24/7
Access on desk and office plans
Amenities
One price. No credits to count
Desk, fibre, coffee, booths, post and the terrace are all in the monthly price. Meeting rooms are the only extra, and members pay less for those.
Gigabit fibre, wired
Two independent lines and a wired socket at every dedicated desk. Nobody here blames the wifi.
Ten phone booths
Soundproofed, ventilated, first come first served. No booking, no signing out, no hovering.
Kitchen and roof terrace
Proper coffee, oat milk, a dishwasher rota that works, and a terrace open from April to October.
Bikes, showers, parcels
Secure bike store for forty, two showers with towels, and parcels signed for six days a week.
The spaces
Room to concentrate, and room to talk
Four ways to work here. Move between them as the year changes — nobody is tied in beyond a month.
From £24 a day
Hot desk
Any free desk on the ground floor, 8am to 8pm on weekdays. Buy a day, five days or a month.
£295 a month
Dedicated desk
Your own desk, lockable drawer, second screen if you want one, and a key for any hour.
From £425 per desk
Private office
Six rooms on the first floor for teams of two to twelve. Your own door, your own thermostat.
From £16 an hour
Meeting rooms
Three rooms for four, six and ten people. Screens, whiteboards and a door that shuts properly.
The community
The part you cannot photograph: the people
Ninety-one members: designers, developers, a bookbinder, two small agencies and a charity. Three things hold it together.
Pricing
Three plans, one month's notice
All prices include VAT. No joining fee, no deposit on desk plans.
Meeting rooms are booked by the hour, from £22 — or £16 if you are a member. See the three rooms and their rates.
Members
What the members say
Ninety-one people work here. These five agreed to be quoted.
I moved off my kitchen table in January and my working day got two hours longer and a lot calmer. The booths are the thing — I can take a client call without warning anyone.
Nadia Sharpe
Illustrator, member since 2024
Nadia Sharpe
We took a four-desk office upstairs after eight months on dedicated desks. Same building, same coffee, same people at lunch — we just shut a door now.
Theo Adeyemi
Founder, Barrow & Bell
Theo Adeyemi
The wired connection at my desk is the unglamorous reason I stay. I push big files all day and I have never once blamed the wifi.
Mei Lau
Product designer, Halyard
Mei Lau
I came for a day pass, booked a meeting room that afternoon and signed up on the Friday. Nobody chased me once.
Rory Finn
Freelance developer
Rory Finn
Thursday lunch is where I have picked up three pieces of work. That is not a perk, it is the whole reason I pay monthly rather than daily.
Asha Devan
Copywriter, member since 2022
Asha Devan
I moved off my kitchen table in January and my working day got two hours longer and a lot calmer. The booths are the thing — I can take a client call without warning anyone.
Nadia Sharpe
Illustrator, member since 2024
Nadia Sharpe
We took a four-desk office upstairs after eight months on dedicated desks. Same building, same coffee, same people at lunch — we just shut a door now.
Theo Adeyemi
Founder, Barrow & Bell
Theo Adeyemi
The wired connection at my desk is the unglamorous reason I stay. I push big files all day and I have never once blamed the wifi.
Mei Lau
Product designer, Halyard
Mei Lau
I came for a day pass, booked a meeting room that afternoon and signed up on the Friday. Nobody chased me once.
Rory Finn
Freelance developer
Rory Finn
Thursday lunch is where I have picked up three pieces of work. That is not a perk, it is the whole reason I pay monthly rather than daily.
Asha Devan
Copywriter, member since 2022
Asha Devan
Journal
Notes from the floor
How the building works, what things cost and what we got wrong. Written by the people who run it.
Tours
Come and see it. Tours run Tuesday to Thursday
Twenty minutes, no sales patter. You see the floor you would sit on, meet whoever is in, and leave with a price in writing.
The member note — one email a month, what is on and what is free