The Manchester Town Hall complex constitutes striking heritage architecture that needed sensitive development and detailing to bring the building up to modern office standards whilst retaining all of the remarkable history of the building.
Often heritage architecture can pose challenges when installing a conventional raised floor system due to floor-ceiling ratios and therefore another solution has to be employed. In this particular case, a screed option was not suitable and hence the floor services had to be installed using a floor penetration grommet with services being offered from below and therefore needed to be fire rated. In most cases 30 or 60 minute fire rating is acceptable depending on the building size and function, however, Building Control were adamant that 120 minutes must be achieved.
After many discussions, and scouring the world for suitable products, Electropatent were commissioned to provide a solution for the cable management. This involved tremendous amount of work and was a learning curve for all concerned. Electropatent had the in-house skills and expertise to take on this challenge; nevertheless, some involved needed convincing whether it could be achieved in the timescale available.
The client, MCC, wanted a robust product which would provide long & reliable service life offering value for money. The project was led by SimpsonHauge & Partners (formerly Ian Simpson Architects) with support from BDP, Arup, Laing O’Rourke, NG Baileys and MCC.
Electropatent were proud to be a part of the restoration project, which posed huge challenges due to the nature of the building. From the outset we knew this was not going to be easy; however, we took on the project and successfully designed a new product and delivered on time to ensure there were no delays to the overall project restoration plans.