The building is located in the Chorlton-on-Medlock district of Manchester, on Upper Brook Street, and is adjacent to University Place and the Henry Royce Institute.

[1][8] At the time of completion this was the largest photovoltaic array in North West England, and helped the architects to win an award for "Business Commitment to the Environment".

[9] One condition for planning approval was that the project included corridors for pedestrian access and visual transparency between Upper Brook Street and Oxford Road.

This was to counter complaints by the residents of Brunswick, on the other side of Upper Brook Street, that previous university developments seemed to be creating a wall to them.

The third floor houses the academic offices of the JBCA, which provides a new base for the research activities in astronomy and astrophysics with the relocation of many staff and students from Jodrell Bank Observatory.

The Observatory now forms part of the JBCA and provides leading observational facilities such as the Lovell Telescope and the Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN).

[citation needed] In January 2008, the Project Design Office for the Square Kilometre Array relocated to Manchester to be hosted by the JBCA, co-ordinating the global efforts in constructing the next generation radio telescope.