Beacon Building – Bury College

The refurbished Beacon Building at Bury College, Greater Manchester, has been transformed and repurposed to provide high quality teaching and practical training spaces to accommodate an increasing number of students at this popular higher education facility. 

The building is home to an expanding Hair and Beauty department, which has relocated from the nearby Woodbury building where their previous space was no longer fit for purpose.

Our team provided the mechanical and electrical, and structures designs for the refurbishment of the Beacon building, working alongside the client and architect to boost the availability of functional learning spaces for specialist use.

Hybrid Ventilation Heat Recovery Units were utilised in the design, with some rooms making use of the existing radiator systems and others employing new radiant panels. An additional Boost Extract System was installed in two rooms in the beauty department so that fresh air is constant available to these rooms to dispel heavy smells and fumes from products used within the classroom setting.

Our structures team provided design details for forming new window and ventilation penetrations through lightweight cladding panels, forming new service riser openings through existing composite concrete and metal deck floor slabs. Our design also created new local penetrations through the existing suspended precast ground floor slab, allowing for below-ground drainage modifications, installation of new brise soliel, support strategy for both masonry and lightweight façade panels, and lateral framing support for new sliding folding partitions.