This month sees another milestone reached in the £420m Manchester Engineering Campus Development (MECD) for the University of Manchester, with the practical completion of Oddfellows Hall. So called after the Oddfellows Society who originally built and occupied the building, which is a Grade II listed asset.
The newly refurbished space will be used as a multi-faceted workspace, conferencing and social venue. It will also be the home to the International Centre for Advanced Materials (ICAM) and the Dalton Nuclear Institute.
The heritage features of the original building are complemented by a new build extension with new building services throughout.
Through collaboration with the project team and contractor Balfour Beatty, and the use of BIM from the outset, the Arup team were able to meet the challenges of detailing and co-ordinating a design that was sympathetic to the heritage character of the building.
By using the historical building plans for Oddfellows Hall, Arup’s structural engineering team identified potential interventions to inform the refurbishment works, remediate some of the original structural defects and ultimately prolong the life of this listed building.
