[6] The Pevsner Architectural Guide describes the Kilburn building as a "big aggressive box of brick pier and vertical window strips"[4] which has also been likened in appearance to a giant brick central processing unit (CPU) heat sink.

[4][7] Up until 2015, the building was connected to Manchester Business School, via the Precinct Centre and Bridge on the North Side of the building over the Oxford Road (demolished in 2015).

[8] To the South, the building was connected by another pedestrian walkway (referred to as a dismal corridor in Pevsner)[4] to the Mathematics Tower, Manchester which was demolished in 2005.

The pedestrian walkways initially formed part of a futuristic but ultimately unsuccessful vision of streets in the sky to link Manchester Oxford Road railway station and out to the Hulme Crescents in Hulme and also to Ardwick.

[10] The cornbrook, a culverted river which drains the urban area South of the River Medlock, flows under the Kilburn building on its way from Gorton to the Manchester Ship Canal at the Pomona Docks.